


The Chaos In Our Minds

by ShadowTheYaoiHog



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games)
Genre: First sonic fanfic, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-10 23:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7864888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowTheYaoiHog/pseuds/ShadowTheYaoiHog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the midst of a foiling yet another one of Eggman's plans, Sonic, Shadow and Silver find themselves in a predicament after successfully stopping the Doctor... but at what price?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where We Start

All that could be heard was the howl of the wind and the dull buzzing of electricity throughout the room. No-one had entered the room for nearly 2 months and no-one had left. Eggman had been keeping himself preoccupied with his latest piece so much that he for those two months lived in that room. He’d been quiet while working on his project; he knew this would arouse suspicion from Sonic and his friends but he didn’t care. Screens with videos that were fed from the security cameras throughout the based littered the control panel before him. Not two days ago Eggman was once again on the move- creating havoc in his wake. Sometimes he much rather enjoyed the destruction he left over the end result. He sat at the control panel watching one of the screens intently as he smirked and gently rubbed his hands together.

“You cocky little rodent,” he stated as he watched Sonic pummelling through the seemingly endless stream of Egg-bots leaving piles of scraped metal and wires. “You think you’ve bested me? Well just you wait ‘til we meet…” He growled as he swivelled from his chair into the darkness of the room.

* * *

 

Sonic began fluently aiming himself at the Egg-bots- a cocky grin spread across his muzzle as he heard the familiar sound of crushed metal. He peered over at Shadow and Silver fighting beside him and gave a smirk. “Hehe, as much fun as it is beating these buckets of bolts to a pulp you’d think Tails would hurry up a bit.” He jumped at one final ‘bot but instead of destroying it he rested his hand on top of the robot’s head and pushed himself off of it doing a flip before landing on his feet in a low crouch. He smirked and kicked his foot underneath the legs of the robot tripping it over and smashing its head into the ground- sparks flew out from its head. Sonic covered his face with one arm to keep the sparks from aiming at his face.

Shadow glared over at the azure before he jumped and roundhouse kicked one of the oncoming robot’s head right out of its socket. He growled slightly a he landed and faced the speedster. “He’s tackling a delicate procedure, Hedgehog,” he turned and shot a spear at a lone robot. “unlike you he has the patience to make sure he doesn’t do something to put us all in danger.” Before Sonic could respond a fresh line of robots came out which were swiftly destroyed as Sonic spin dashed through them. He picked himself up and brushed off his fur. Smirking over at Shadow he shrugged, “Oh c’mon! I knew what I was doing when I ran in!”

He ran over to Shadow as a large circle of robots surrounded them. He pressed his back against the Ebony ‘hog ad shot a quick side glance at him. “I just got caught by one of the cameras is all.” Frowning, Shadow linked his arms and lifted Sonic who began kicking his legs out at supersonic speeds while being spun around- pieces of destroyed metal being flown in all kinds of directions. “This isn’t a game, you idiot! You need to learn to have patience otherwise you’re going to end up getting yourself killed.” Shadow spat back at Sonic through gritted teeth. When no more robots emerged, they slowed and unlinked arms. Sonic rolled his arm forward to stretch it out and peered down the hall.

“Ya don’t think they’re gonna stop coming for us do you?” He puzzled quietly to the other.

“Sonic!!”

Turning on his heels to face Shadow, a very peeved Shadow, and raised his hands in mock surrender, “Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, mum.”

Shadow growled in frustration and walked over slapping Sonic on the back of his head. “Shut up and pay attention to our priorities would you?!” He planted a hand on his hip and pointed furiously at the structure behind them.

“We need to get inside the Doctor’s base and destroy whatever machine he’s created to siphon the Chaos energy from the Chao gardens. If we don’t stop fooling around like idiots, a whole race of creatures who hold possibly one of the most important roles in keeping this planet alive will die! Do you understand?!

He stared at Sonic with rage burning in his eyes and crossed his arms over his tuft of fur. Sonic swiftly looked away and folded his ears back slightly. He narrowed his eyes and looked down the entrance to the base. “Right.” He peered over at Silver who smashed the final robot into a nearby wall. Turning he did a final check for any more Egg-bots but when none were seen he turned back to Shadow and nodded.

“Let’s get this over with.”

He quickly turned and sped into the base with Shadow and Silver following behind.

* * *

 

Eggman walked over to a large machine that sat in the centre of the huge room- it had a large set of individual controls surrounding it. There was a large window in the side which allowed the doctor to inspect how much was inside the mechanical container. He grinned as he read the statistics.

“It seems that pesky blue menace won’t have much time to help those disgusting little vermin- I only need to acquire 15% more until I’ve drained every bit of Chaos energy from those gardens.”

He further read the statistics as a swelling of triumph spread through his chest. “Once those creatures die out and the world begins to tear apart, I’ll step up and blackmail the people- I’ll only bring balance back to the world after they accept me as their ruler- the title I truly deserve!”

He laughed manically as a computerised voice could be heard coming from the control panels.

“10% remaining”

He placed a hand on the container’s window and peered in with a dark smirk plastered on his face

“I think this time you’ve lost.”

* * *

 

Finding another set of robots on patrol Sonic spin dashed through them and jumped up with a slight chuckle. “Tails seriously needs to hurry up with disabling the shield!” Hearing the familiar crackle from his wrist communicator, he smiled as he lifted the base of his glove to reveal it and clicked a button on the side “Yo! Tails! Nice of you to finally join the party! You got the shield down yet?” The communication was weak between the two but strong enough that Tails’ voice reached to Sonic, though slightly crackled. “Yep… down and…. Safe…”

The communicator crackled louder and beeped indicating that the communication had been disconnected. Sonic sighed and put his glove back over the watch. “I think he needs to update these when we get back.” His ears perked as he heard the unmistakable sound of jets and smirked as he turned to face Shadow and Silver. He lowered a brow and crossed his arms with a playful smirk spreading over his muzzle.

“Looks like you’re getting slow in your old age, Shadow.”

Shadow slowed his skating and returned to walking as he pushed passed the speed demon with a huff. “Shut up, Faker. I was staying with Silver,” pointing his thumb at the approaching Ivory, “so he wouldn’t get lost unlike you who doesn’t seem to give two about either of us here.” Said hedgehog quickly appeared behind Shadow slightly panting and sweating. “Can you guys ever work together without bickering like a married couple? Seriously?”

The two hedgehogs quickly snapped their attention to Silver with a poisonous glare.

“Shut it!” they both simultaneously spat; venom clearly detected in their voices.

Silver gulped and folded back his ears with a sheepish smile. He coughed slightly and scratched the back of his neck. “Hehe, sorry. Hey, we good to go in yet?”

As if forgetting what just happened, Sonic gave his signature grin and thumbs up, “Yeah, I just got word from Tails.” Stretching an arm over his head he turned on his heel and called out, “You two slow pokes better keep up!” With that, he raced off into the base leaving a cloud of dust behind. Shadow and Silver slightly coughed as the dust settled. Shadow blinked a couple of times and crouched into a runners position,

“You bet I will, blue boy”

 He smirked and sped off towards the blue hedgehog leaving Silver standing on his own waving the dust away from his face. After blinking a few times, he saw that he was on his own. He slumped and ran at a brisk pace to try and catch up with the others. “I swear whenever those two are together they always forget that I’m here…” he smiled and chuckled to himself , “Lovebirds…”

* * *

 

Shadow quickly caught up with Sonic earning a surprised look from the blue one. Shadow smirked and pushed himself a little further putting himself just that little bit in front of Sonic.

“What’s wrong, Sonic? Scared that you’re going to lose? Well you should be!”

Giving Shadow his signature grin Sonic chuckled and sped up putting himself neck and neck with the other. “Nah! Just going out for a brisk jog.” He flipped over a few obstacles on the path giving Shadow a wink and thumbs up as he did. He spin dashed up the wall making his way across the ceiling and returning to the ground on the opposite side of the room. Shadow frowned and rolled his eyes.

“Show off…”

This put himself in front of Shadow. He turned to the darker and started running backwards with his arms crossed and eyes half lidded. “But how about we take this up a notch?” He gave him a wink before turning and shot off soon followed by a loud bang as he broke through the sound barrier. Shadow blushed slightly at the somewhat seductive wink and gritted his teeth as he created a sonic boom of his own chasing after the younger hedgehog, “I don’t even think he knows where he’s going…” he muttered to himself.

* * *

 

Eggman watched the screen to his left and smashed the panel in a burst of rage. “Those rodents! Hmph! How dare they play through my base as if it were a petty game!” He quickly pushed in a pattern of buttons and heard a loud roar of machinery behind him. He turned and smiled as a blue light glowed from within the dark. “Perfect.” He caressed his moustache gently as he relayed commands to the creature dwelling in the darkness. “You, unlike my other minions, had better leave black and blue piles of blood and bones for me to rejoice over.” He waved his hand at the robot and turned his back. “Now go and finish the job.”

The robot hummed in understanding and exited the room. The clunking of metal against metal echoed through the halls until it reached a large room, waiting for the two heroes to run in. It was the only thing separating the hedgehogs from Doctor Eggman. Soon the two stopped into the room with a slight skid; they rested their hands on their knees, sweat dripping lightly from their foreheads and were panting slightly.

* * *

 

Sonic smirked and looked up at Shadow who was panting and slightly struggling for breath. He blushed a little but shook his head.

“Dude… we *gasp* haven’t had… a… race like that *gasp* in ages…”

Shadow grunted in agreement as he stretched his arms above his head, his chest slightly puffing out allowing more oxygen into his lungs. He looked up slightly and groaned as he noticed the mechanical creature before them. “Ugh…”

Sonic looked up slightly confused from hearing Shadow’s grunt of disapproval; didn’t he normally enjoy these races they had with each other?

“What’s up? Didn’t pull a muscle did ya?” he added with a small chuckle. Shadow shifted his eyes from Sonic to the large robot waiting for them then back again. Tracking where Shadow’s gaze went he immediately drooped in annoyance. “They never stop coming do they?” he mumbled to himself. He stood and stretched keeping a lid slightly open noticing Shadow watching him from the corner of his eyes- his cheeks become a slight pink. Smirking to himself Sonic opened his eyes and thrusted a finger towards the robot. “Alright, big guy! Let’s get this straight. You don’t like me and I don’t like you so let’s just get this over and done with as quick as possible, okay?”

The robot just stood there. You could hear a pin drop.

Sonic frowned at the robot, his eyes half-lidded, shifting a gaze in Shadow’s direction. “He’s exactly like you. Never responds when trying to strike conversation.” Shadow rolled his eyes and gave another grunt as he got low into an attacking position. Just barely containing his laughter, Sonic just smiled and shook his head, “See what I mean?” He turned his attention back to the looming robot and smirked; he was ready to play.

“Alright, let’s take you down Sonic style!”

The robot’s upper body began to spin giving its left arm, the base where its hand would have been was instead replaced with a mace, momentum and began advancing towards them. It threw its arm at the two who swiftly jumped away before the mace crashed into the metal floor creating a massive hole shooting pieces of metal around it. Once he found his footing again, Sonic leaned on the balls of his foot and cupped his hands over his mouth, “I’ve said it to Shadow and I’ll say it to you; you’re too SLOW!!! Haha!”

Ignoring his comment which seemed somewhat a stab towards the older hedgehog Shadow began throwing a steady stream of spears at the robot- trying to remove the attacking appendage. The Robot quickly retaliated and shot his arm at Shadow, finding his target. Shadow was thrown against the wall with a deep groan. Slightly flinching as he watched Shadow being attack he rushed over to the other’s body dodging the blades that were being fired at him from the robot’s opposite arm. He helped Shadow up but was then pushed aside by said hedgehog as a sudden stream of blades was shot at the two. Shadow braced himself for the impact- face tensed in anticipation which never came. He quickly shot open his eyes to find the familiar turquoise aura around the bombardment of blades. Silver grunted as he threw the blades right back at the attacker watching as they cut them down to pieces. One of the blades flew right through the head, cutting it in two.

Watching the robot fall with a loud crash following he turned to the two and grinned. “I don’t remember you two being sawed in half by a robot being on the memo,” he then frowned and crossed his arms “nor do I recall being ditched on there either.”

Sonic scratched his head nervously chuckling as he averted his gaze away from Silver. “Hehe… sorry about that, pal… guess I just got caught in the heat of the moment?” he smiled with a shrug, not sure whether Silver would accept his excuse or not.

As much as Shadow was enjoy seeing Sonic in what would be considered an uncomfortable position, he rolled his eyes and grasped Sonic’s wrist, pulling him into the next room. “Hurry up; we don’t have much time to destroy whatever Eggman’s created.”

Blushing lightly from Shadow’s contact, he removed his hand from his wrist and began moving forward. “Right, c’mon you two!”

In a gust of wind, the three raced in to reach their final destination.

* * *

 

He watched the screen furiously as the three destroyed his latest robot so easily. He pulled on his mustache and gritted his teeth. “Blast it all! I had spent months on that robot and what does he do to show my efforts?! He blunders it up!” Eggman returned his gazed back to the screen with a huff. “Now where have they gotten to?” He watched slightly puzzled. The computerised voice could be heard notifying the doctor of his progress. “5% remaining.”

“And that’s as low as it’s going to get, Egg-head!!”

An all too familiar voice echoed through the room. Eggman’s face began to heat up from the rage. He turned and spat at the three hedgehogs before him. “You-!”

Frowning slightly in boredom and opening and closing his hand imitating a mouth “’pesky hedgehogs’ yada yada yada; I know the drill. Now let’s stop talking and let’s start breaking!” Sonic quickly interrupted and smirked as he began homing attacking the large metal container containing a large amount of liquid which was radiating high concentration levels of Chaos Energy. He bounced right off not even leaving a scratch mark behind. He could hear Eggman laughing behind him.

“Oh ho ho ho! Have fun with destroying my toys, Sonic! That’s 30 centimetre thick titanium, the strongest metal! It’s all a matter of time before this pathetic planet is mine!” Eggman smirked and clenched his fist in mild triumph.

Shadow’s hand began glowing a pale yellow as he shot a Chaos spear at the Doctor’s hover craft, but to no avail as it was blocked by an invisible shield surrounding Eggman. Slightly jumping from the attack Eggman peered over at Shadow and began wagging a finger at him, slightly frowning. “Tut tut, Shadow. Aren’t we a little eager to spill some blood?”

Shadow narrowed his eyes, rage glowing from the ruby orbs and began shooting spear after spear at the craft hoping to weaken the shield. Eggman watched with an amused expression as if he was a child at the carnival for the first time. He began laughing and wiped away a stray tear that trickled down his cheek. “Oh, how your pointless determination entertains me so- now why don’t you just go and grab your blue boyfriend and third wheel over there,” He pointed over at Sonic and Silver who were busy with destroying the container and surrounding robots, “and leave me to my evil scheming, hm?”

Sonic immediately froze and stared, his face bright red, in horror at the smug fat man. He noticed that Shadow had also ceased his actions and almost mirrored Sonic’s expression. Eggman glanced over at the reactions of the two hedgehogs and burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter. Silver took advantage of Eggman’s distraction from the battle and, using his telekinesis, he began slowly tearing apart the titanium container- careful to dodge the bolts that went flying out of their hinges. With a slight grunt he ripped the container apart completely and flew up grabbing Sonic and Shadow to avoid the impact of the liquidated Chaos energy. An alarm could be heard blaring as the computerised voice began wailing; “Chaos containment disabled, energy overload, core power shutting down, systems malfunctioning-“

Pushing a pattern of buttons on his craft Eggman smirked as an escape hole appeared on the wall. He gave the hedgehog trio a mock salute and blew them a raspberry. “Though you may have bested me again, you multicoloured freaks of nature, you’ll never have the chance again as this base is rigged to blow from here to kingdom come. Hasta la bye bye, suckers!” Eggman flew through the small opening and exited from the doomed building. Silver carried himself and the two others to the exit but it closed just before Silver could get the three safely out of the base.

Shifting his gaze from the now closed exit to the slowly rising levels of Chaos Energy Shadow called for the azure’s and ivory’s attention. “The high concentration of this Chaos energy will kill us if we come into contact with it-“

“Set to explode in T-minus 10 seconds.”

The alarm boomed over Shadow’s already shouting voice. The three all folded their ears at the growing volume of the alarms trying to block it out.

“Do you still have your Emeralds?!” Shadow asked struggling to keep his voice louder than the wailing alarms. Sonic grabbed the red Chaos Emerald from inside his quills and nodded firmly, while Silver- using his telekinesis- removed the cyan from his own.

“T-minus 7 seconds”

Grabbing the dark blue from his quills and placing it in front of himself, Shadow look sternly at Sonic and Silver. “We have to Chaos Control out otherwise we will die.”

Sonic and Silver gave each other a quick nod before placing their Emeralds forward. They gently began to glow and circle around each other.

“T-minus 3”

“CHAOS-!”

“2”

“Contr-!”

“1”

Before the three heroes could finish their command, the base exploded. Fire erupted from the building spreading sudden heat around for hundreds of metres while shooting metal out and hitting any unfortunate creature coming in contact with the projectiles.

Watching as he piloted the Tornado a safe distance from the base, a large grin spread across Tails’ face as he rejoiced over foiling yet another one of Doctor Eggman’s plans. Wanting to celebrate with his brother Tails reached for a screen like panel next to the controls and inputted Sonic’s communicator code. “Yeah~! Sonic, we did it!”

He never received a response from the blue hero. All he received from the watch was a deafening static indicating the communicator was either damaged or destroyed.

“Sonic?”

Tails tried to reach his brother a second time but again, nothing. Tails began panicking and imputed Shadow’s code hoping to reach a connection with the darker thinking that in the heat of battle Sonic may have accidentally damaged the communicator.

“Shadow?! Do you read me?”

Nothing but static responded. As a last resort he tried to communicate with Silver.

“Silver?! Anyone?!”

He felt drops of tears rolling down his cheeks as he realised the dark truth. Gripping the handle tightly and bringing a hand to wipe away the flowing tears, he flew back to the rendezvous point to tell the others.

“They’re gone…” he whimpered to himself as he flew from the base.

* * *

 

Darkness enveloped the three hedgehogs as they floated in nothingness. The only light that could be seen was radiating from them. They laid still; not breathing but the beating of their hearts echoed through the void. Shadow opened his eyes; his eye lids slowly fluttering open. They soon opened as wide as they could as Shadow gasped and starting coughing violently trying to draw in as much breath into his neglected lungs as he could without ripping open his throat. Once he gained his breath back he noticed the other two still not breathing. He floated his way towards Sonic and shook him lightly to try and rouse him from the coma-like state.

Furrowing his brows together Shadow whispered gently to the unconscious hedgehog. “Faker…” No response except for the silence of the void. Shadow clenched his hand into a fist and brought it swiftly onto Sonic’s chest causing the other to shoot open their eyes and go into a coughing fit. Shadow quickly covered Sonic’s mouth and narrowed his eyes.

“Breathe through your nose or you’ll tear your throat open.” he whispered as he noticed tears flowing down Sonic’s cheeks as he regained his breath. Once Sonic had begun breathing steadily through his nose Shadow removed his hand and flew over to Silver repeating the process.

Silver started coughing into his hand gently as Shadow moved away from him to allow him to breathe. “W-where are we?” He began looking around and squinted raising a hand above his eyes to see if he could make out any of his environment.

Shadow crossed his arms and shook his head gently. “I’m not sensing any Chaos waves here. Wherever we are, we’re the only living things here.”

“I think I’ve been here before.”

Shadow and Silver turned to face Sonic in confusion. Shadow looked around and nodded slightly and raised a hand to his mouth in thought. “I agree. It seems awfully familiar.”

Silver furrowed his brows slightly in annoyance feeling like he should know where the heck they were but had no recollection of this place at all. “I can’t say I agree with either of you ‘cause I’ve got no idea where in the world we are and none of it seems familiar to me at all!” He spread out his arms, slightly irritated thinking that the other two were keeping something from him.

“UGH!” Shadow placed a hand to his forehead as his face began to contort expressing deep pain much like a migraine. Sonic swiftly floated over to Shadow and rested his hands on both his shoulders. “Shadow, you okay?”

Shadow slowly opened one eye and let out a shaky breath. “There’s a sudden appearance of Chaos Energy- but it is all negative energy…”

“Um… guys? This wouldn’t have anything to do with the negative energy would it?”

The two turned to face Silver as he began inspecting his arm which had started glowing and small sparkles were floating from the appendage. Sonic was inspecting the hand and grabbed it, but pulled it back as soon as he came into contact with it. “Yeow!!”

Silver soon started growing worried his eye ridges rising to show his concern for the pained hedgehog. “W-what’s wrong?” Sonic was gently rubbing his palm with his thumb. “That burnt like putting your hand in the heart of a fire.” he stated before taking off his glove and pressed his palm to his mouth, beginning to suck on it to try and take away the heat.

Although Shadow was still in a considerable amount of pain, he flew over and surrounded his hands around Silver’s making sure not to make contact. “There are high levels of the negative Chaos energy emitting from you.”

As soon as Shadow removed his hands the light began to travel up Silver’s arm- his hand no longer definable as it became a body of pure light. “Ahhh! What’s happening?!”

Shadow shot a quick glare at Silver, annoyed by his sudden panicking. “Calm down. I don’t know what it is but we’re not going to find out any sooner if you keep panicking!” He closed his eyes to give himself a better reading of the Chaos energy. He furrowed his brows in concentration and confusion. “I’m not getting anything else and we have no way of containing the energy,” the darker stated before peering down at his inhibitor rings. “Perhaps these will work?”

He unclasped the rings from his wrists and tried to put them on Silver. It was burning his hands trying to put them on but he was determined to stop whatever was happening to Silver. Just as the rings came into contact with Silver’s wrist they crumbled in Shadow’s hand. “W-what?!”

Sonic appeared behind Shadow and pointed towards Silver’s lower body. “Woah, dude! Look at your legs!”

He looked down and noticed that his legs were also become bodies of pure light. He felt tears falling as he shook in fear watching his body deteriorate before him. He put a hand over his eyes to cover up the tears and bit his bottom lip. “I can’t believe it. I hoped I’d go out with something to go by my name, but what have I accomplished since meeting you two? Nothing!”

“Silver, that’s not true!” Sonic reached out to Silver but pulled his hand back as Silver hid his head in both of his hands and began sobbing heavily. After several moments, his cries became quieter and he looked up and smiled. “I want you two to know that you are the closest people I have ever had to family- like the older brothers I never had… and always wished for.” He felt a wave of heat flush over his face. It was the same heat that was expelled from his glowing appendages. He knew his time was up.

“Thank you… so much…”

He smiled with his last words as the light that was his body dispersed and faded into the darkness of the void.

“SILVER!!” Sonic reached a hand out to Silver’s once body as if trying to grab whatever of his body remained. The surrounding air was still and not a word was said between the ebony and azure hedgehogs for several seconds.

Shadow turned away from where Silver once was and faced the younger reaching out a hand to him to try and comfort him. “S-sonic, I-“

Sonic suddenly clasped a hand around his throat as he began finding it increasingly difficult to breathe. He was slightly wheezing at the lack of air in his lungs but his body wouldn’t allow him any. The darker retracted his arm and stood frozen, unsure of what to do. He noticed Sonic crying and awkwardly wrapped his arms around gently rubbing circles into his back just underneath his back quills. Sonic’s voice cracked burying his head into Shadow’s shoulder crying. “I-I’m so sorry, Shadow…”

Shadow furrowed his brows in confusion and pushed the younger slightly forward, still keeping a gentle hold. “What? What are you apologising to me for?”

Sonic turned his eyes away. His eyes were red and puffy from the tears. “I never wanted you to see me like this; weak and soft…” _I mean we’re rivals for crying out loud! We’re not supposed to show our weaknesses to each other…_ he thought to himself as silence instilled between the two. _B-but is it really all down to our rivalry? I know I see Shadow as one of my best friends but do I only keep myself strong because of our rivalry, our friendship? Or is it… something else?_

Shadow frowned slightly and sighed. “Just because you become emotional over the loss of one of the closest people to you does not make you weak, it just demonstrates just how much you cared for them and how much importance they had to you.” He held Sonic close to him again. His body suddenly became warm and held Sonic just that little bit tighter.

“Hehe… to think- you of all people taking care of me right now…” Sonic laughed gently as he buried his head back onto Shadow’s shoulder. He could slightly hear Shadow breathing- deep, slow and smooth. It was actually rather soothing in the azure’s opinion

“Isn’t this what friends do when they’re hurt?” Sonic’s ear flicked at the response. _Friends?_ He thought to himself _I thought Shadow saw our relationship as only rivalry or allies…_

Looking down, and chuckling, averting his gaze from Shadow Sonic rubbed his eyes of the tears that were still by his eyes and gasped. He watched as Shadow’s feet slowly turned into light “SH-SHADOW!!”

He held onto Sonic tighter. He could feel the heat of the light growing up his legs knowing he would suffer the same fate as Silver but he wasn’t ready to let Sonic go. Not yet. Not ever again.

“Sh-Shadow, your legs-“ Sonic pulled himself back slightly to watch the growing light. Shadow felt as if something went snap inside his chest as Sonic moved. He didn’t know and frankly didn’t care what it was but all he knew was that he felt hurt as Sonic tried to pull himself away from the ebony, even if it was only to watch the light.

“I know.” he quickly cut Sonic off before Shadow’s emotions crumbled. He needed to be strong- if not for himself than for Sonic. He felt the light consuming his hands and he let go of Sonic before he hurt him from the heat. Sonic felt the heat from Shadow’s hands as he let him go leaving a slightly singed smell to his fur. His arms were slightly blackened but he didn’t care. He was hurt that he couldn’t hold Shadow til the end.

“Shadow, why’d you-?”

“I’m not having you be hurt again”

“I don’t care-!” Sonic’s voice caught in his throat as he watched the light consuming almost all of Shadow’s body. Shadow grinned softly and gently closed his eyes “I always wondered what it would be like when you reached the end.” He chuckled slightly and opened his eyes and watched Sonic as fresh tears came out. “I never thought I would see the day that an immortal creature would see the light for the final time…” The last of the light glazed over his face.

“Good-bye, Sonic.”

Just as Silver had done, Shadow’s body faded into the nothingness. Sonic just stayed there; not moving a single muscle, not making a single sound. He stared at where Shadow once was and noticed a glint of gold suddenly appear. He floated over to it and grabbed at it hesitantly. He inspected it and found that it was one of Shadow’s inhibitor rings. “It must be one of the rings he went to give Silver…” he whispered to himself. He stared at it, gripping it tightly in his ungloved hand; his knuckles turning white.

“Two down; one more to go.”

The blue hero turned around to try and find the voice which was deep and menacing. “Who’s there?!” “What?!” the voice replied in a mock hurt tone, “If anyone, I would have thought you would remember me! That hurts, Sonic.”

Sonic narrowed his eyes and began turning trying to find the figure that belonged to the voice. “How do you know who I am?” he shouted into the darkness his body now shaking from both rage and fear. “Let’s just say that you and I have a bit of history together- although, I will admit,  it was a little one-sided.” The voice replied.

Clenching his fists, tightening his grip on the ring and growling slightly, his teeth slightly baring. “I have no-idea who you are and where or when we met and I frankly don’t care! What have you done with my friends?!” He barked at the unknown other. Suddenly purple flames surrounded Sonic but no heat came from it; instead it felt like ice. “Nothing, absolutely nothing. I didn’t even have to lift a finger this time for you and your friends to meet your timely demise.”

“What are you talking about?”

A deep long sigh echoed through the abyss “Shadow was right, you really are an idiot…” Sonic grit his teeth and gripped the ring even tighter “What do you know about Shadow?! Answer me, damn it!”

“If you so desperately want to know… let’s just say that on the surface we’re exactly the same…” The figure floated into the ring of fire which grew bigger and brighter upon his entrance. Sonic just floated where he was staring at the Shadow look-a-like. He felt his stomach cramping slightly taking in the figure. “W-who are you?! Are you one of those Shadow android things?!”

A deep growl of laughter rung in the speedster’s ears. The figure lowered his eyelids halfway down and tilted his head slightly. “Me? A petty android modelled after that disgrace to the world? No! I am Mephiles, Mephiles the Dark- the eternal Sun God!” He flew directly in front of Sonic and held his chin forcing him to tilt his head upwards. “Does that ring any bells in that empty head of yours?”

Sonic couldn’t respond. He opened his mouth to speak but whatever voice he had was caught in his throat. Mephiles sighed and dropped his hand away from Sonic’s face turning away from the azure ‘hog. “You make me feel as though everything that I went through to kill you was for nothing-“

“YOU DID DO THIS TO US!!” Sonic spat his quills rising as he rose his guard putting himself in as best an attacking position as he could while still keeping his emotions in check. Mephiles whipped his head around to face Sonic again. He began laughing again tilting his head back slightly. “You fool! I didn’t have to go through the trouble of doing anything this time, but thanks to your destroying of my true creation I was banished here to exist throughout the rest of time- your coming here was purely unplanned and especially not because of me; though I really should thank you…” he added resting a hand to his chin.

“Wha-?”

“Because of the large amounts of Chaos energy emitting from your pathetic bodies I can now return to the earth and finish my destruction.” He grabbed Sonic’s hands and pulled him closer to him. “Isn’t that wonderful?” He purred deeply into the other’s sensitive ear. The azure gulped as he tried to remove the other’s grip from his hands but could feel of his energy now being sucked out of his body. He turned his head away from Mephiles and peered down at his feet which he noticed began glowing.

Mephiles, following Sonic’s gaze, watched the light slowly creeping up Sonic’s legs. “Well, well. It seems it’s your time to reunite with your friends,” you could practically hear the smirk coming from his non-existent mouth. “I should let you go but I enjoy watching you suffer; watching you struggle beneath me. As much as I would love to just kill you yet again,” he stroked Sonic’s cheek tenderly and lightly dragged a claw, “I’m afraid I’m too weak to do anything right now. Consider yourself lucky, Trigger.”

Sonic looked up as he felt the heat of the light climbing further up his body halfway up his torso. The fear of knowing the inevitable kept him from watching the growing light. “T-trigger?” he stuttered surprised and confused. Bringing his face right in front of Sonic’s, Mephiles traced a claw onto Sonic’s neck then tracing his collarbone. “Oh, you’ll find out soon enough.” He felt the heat from Sonic’s hand but gripped only tighter as he turned into his crystal form. Sonic began panicking as he watched his body disappearing before him. Fresh tears begin streaking down his face. Chuckling, Mephiles brought his face right in front of Sonic’s. “Whoever said that this would be your end? This is just the beginning of hell.” He began tracing his finger on the peach and azure borders of his chest.

Sonic could feel Mephiles’ breath on his face and shivered; it was as cold as ice. The rising heat from his body did nothing to contrast the ice cold that surrounded the two; it only made the surrounding flames feel colder. He tried to pull himself away from Mephiles but Mephiles only held him tighter, bringing him closer, his claws now slightly digging in his hands causing Sonic to drop the ring. As soon as he had let it go it crumbled into the nothingness.

“You petty mortals hold such pathetic materials with utmost importance; why put so much emotion into something that can be easily destroyed?” He watched the light consume the last of Sonic’s body; gripping harder feeling the burn from the light coursing through his own body. “I guess it just make everything more entertaining watching you suffer when you are parted with it.” The dark hedgehog thrusted his hand into Sonic’s torso feeling the heat consuming his hand. “Ahh!” The hero watched as Mephiles put his hand inside of him. He flinched expecting to feel pain but all he felt was ice coursing through his now dying body. The last thing he saw before he dissipated was flames erupting from Mephiles’ hands and a dark laughter echoing through the void.

* * *

 

Sonic watched as he went flying through, who knows where, faster than he has ever been before; fast as the speed of light. The world around was just a white blur. He watched with no current emotion as if he never knew what it was- his eyes half-lidded and frowning in a neutral position. He had trouble differentiating his body from his surroundings. He saw this once glowing body reshape itself but not as he thought it would- his arm began looking like bones. He waited for the blue pelt to return over but it never did. He stared wide-eyed as he watched the rest of his body changing. He opened his mouth to make a noise but nothing came out. Sonic reached for his neck and felt nothing but his spine. He began shaking as he saw that all his body was just a skeleton- no organs, no blood. Just a skeleton. Suddenly his whole world went black again.

* * *

 

They took a sudden inhale of air and began coughing violently- their back arched in pain that shot through their body, their chest smashing against a cold metal wall. They tried to bring a hand to their mouth but found that they couldn’t move at all except for a few centimetres with their hands. They tried kicking but it resulted in the same as their hands. They tried breathing again but just started coughing again as the oxygen that was in the cramped area wasn’t anywhere near enough. In a final desperate move to get themselves out a scratched voice screamed out.

 

“HELP!!! GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!! HELP!!! ANYONE!!!”

 


	2. What Have I Become?

A figure laid in a white bed, all kinds of machinery was hooked up to the body. The only sounds were quiet beeping and gentle breathing. Flowers, cards, balloons and other variations of gifts sat on the bedside table. Roses and daisies were bundled together in a vase and were adorned on a separate tabled on the opposite side of the bed. They slowly fluttered open their eye, the beeping from the machine quickening and growing louder, and began breathing a little deeper. “W-where am I?” they breathed quietly to themselves. The sun shining through the window shone right onto the figure making them squint and raise a hand to their face to shadow themselves from the light. They peered at their arm and opened their eyes completely and their voice caught in their throat.

“What the-?” he felt his heart beating faster and his breathing became shaker.

“WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?!”

Sonic felt his throat being scratched and ripped as he began screaming in fear at what laid before him. He grabbed his hand and just stared at it, shaking.

Bones. All he saw were bones.

 He looked up as he heard someone calling his name and the thumping of footsteps on the hallway floor. A familiar figure stood now at the doorway, panting and gripping the door frame. He stood there wide eyed a blank face, and just stared at Sonic. Sonic stared back and a small smile formed over his once horrified features.

“Hey, buddy…”

Tails just stood there. He felt tears trickling down his muzzle and ran over to Sonic’s side bringing him into a tight embrace burying his head in Sonic’s now bony shoulder. Sonic quickly returned the hug but not as strong as his body was extremely weak. Nothing was said between the two brothers for several moments but neither on cared. The silence didn’t need to be broken- all they needed right now was each other. After a short while Tails pulled away and smiled gently as he felt another round of tears threatening to come out.

“Hey, Sonic…” Tails held Sonic again but much gentler and calmer. It was a quick embrace but still just as heartfelt as before. “Thank Chaos you’re awake.”

“Thank gods,” Sonic sighed happily as he tussled through Tails’ bangs. He smiled but quickly looked away as a question swam desperately through his mind.

“What happened to Silver and Shadow? Are they… yknow?” Sonic felt a slight stab in his chest as he asked but he desperately needed to know.

“They’re both safe and sound, don’t worry.” Tails suddenly giggled and earned a puzzled look from the bony hedgehog. “Shadow wouldn’t stop questioning about your condition. Every day he came in to check up your condition.”

A sudden loud cough was heard from the direction of the door and both brothers turned their head and stared at the almost identical figure to Sonic. The only difference between them now was the other had narrower eyes and red streaks beside them.

“Shadow?!” Sonic tried to remove himself from the bed but his legs were stiff. “Don’t bother trying to move, hedgehog. Your legs aren’t going to be able to work for a few hours at least- if you’re anything like me.” Shadow walked over to the bed and sat at the end. “The one bloody time I’m not here and now you decide you’re going to regain conscious…” Tails moved off of the bed and beckons for Shadow to sit in his place. Sonic blushed slightly as Shadow sat closer but it wasn’t the usual rosy colour- instead his blush was a pale sky blue. Sonic looked back at Shadow with his usual smile, trying to keep his blushing under control.

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you. Safe, sound-“ he glance over Shadow’s expression slightly and chuckled, “and grumpy. Nothing ever changes I guess even if we are just a bunch ‘o bones.” Shadow rolled his eyes, two ruby pupils swimming in black. His eyes didn’t have irises- just all red. “It takes a little more than a little fire to kill me off,” he added with a smirk. It left as quickly as it came. “I don’t know if Tails has informed you or not but you’ve been in a coma for fourteen weeks-“

“WHAT?!”

Sonic gripped the sheets tightly and opened his eyes wide, his pupils slightly shaking. Shadow placed his hands on Sonic’s arms and gently rubbed them. “Look, don’t freak out. It would have been unsafe to have you wake up any sooner. If it makes you feel any better I only woke up six weeks ago.” Shadow’s voice softened as he tried to calm Sonic down but Sonic just shook his head

‘Fourteen weeks?! That doesn’t make any sense!’

“But I was only in that void for, like, five minutes after you-”

“Went up in flames? Well, more like sparkles-“ Shadow added with a slight chuckle at the end.”Don’t make a joke of it!” Shadow just stared at Sonic, his outburst startling both the fox and skele-hog. Sonic gritted his teeth and looked away momentarily before shooting a glare at Shadow. He stared at Shadow before pulling him in for embrace. He didn’t care that Shadow was now on top of him; all that mattered to him was that he could be with Shadow again. He felt a flutter in his chest as he hid his head into the crook of Shadow’s neck.

“I thought I would never see you again…” he whispered gently. Shadow shivered as he felt Sonic’s warm breath against his neck. Tails chuckled and quietly left the room to leave the hedgehogs with each other’s company. As Tails left the room, he snickered to himself and rolled his eyes.

“And Sonic tells me he doesn’t like guys…”

He continued down the hall with a little skip in his step as he lets their friends know of Sonic’s awakening.

Several moments was spent in silence as the two continued to hold each other. Finally, Shadow pulled away and shuffled himself off of Sonic crossing his arms over his chest. Sonic quickly fixed up the cover over himself as they had fallen and slightly exposed his pelvis. Looking out the window, the green meadows with large colourful patches of wild flowers blooming in the warm morning sun, Sonic watched the wind blowing a small pile of leaves gracefully through the air. He sighed and rested his chin on his hand. “How did they know we were even alive still?” he turned his focus to the flowers on the bedside table and took out a daisy. He began twirling it in his fingers and after it began to slightly wilt he put it back into the vase. He looked back over at the skele-hog and sighed, “I would have thought we would have been in a morgue or something, y’know? I would never have thought to of been in Tails’ medical ward again”

“I thought there would never be another ‘again’…” Sonic mumbled the last part to himself as he turned his gaze away from the older ‘hog but even in his state Shadow’s sensitive hearing caught everything he said.

“For someone who’s usually quite bubbly and energetic, you’re being rather pessimistic at the moment.”

Sonic looked up- his brows lightly furrowed and tilted his head ever so slightly to his left- definite signs of confusion. “uh… ‘pessimistic’?” Shadow lowered his eyelids and frowned. “You must be kidding right? You don’t know what pessimistic means?” Sonic opened his mouth but before he could say anything Shadow continued “Pessimistic is when you see everything as a negative or there is no positive energy about you or what you say.”

Sonic just sat there, staring; trying to process what was said. After a moment Sonic widened his eyes in understanding and frowned. “Hey! I am NOT a pessimist! If anyone is you are!” he added pointing a finger angrily at the other male. Shadow smirked and tilted his head. “I know; that’s how I can tell when you’re being a Negative Nancy yourself”

Sonic frowned and puffed his cheeks slightly. After a ten second stare off Sonic sighed and smiled. “Nothing changes from here does it?” Shadow chuckled deeply and smirked. “Of course not.” He stood up and fixed up his robe. Reaching out a hand for Sonic to take, he smirked and lowered his eyelids. “I’m sure Silver will be ecstatic to see you’re alright.” The younger smiled and took Shadow’s hand. Shadow gently lifted Sonic from the bed and put the other’s arm over his shoulder helping him keep his balance as his legs were extremely weak. Sonic grunted and winced slightly as he took most of his weight into his legs.

“Lean on me.”

“Huh?” Sonic turned his head facing Shadow and immediately regretted it. His face was mere centimetres from Shadow’s; his breath hitched and he felt heat slowly rising in his cheeks. His eyes turned to the size of pin heads as he felt his whole body become paralysed. He watched as Shadow started talking but it all fell on deaf ears.

“-nic.”

“Sonic!”

“Y-yeah, Shadow?”

“You’re naked. I suggest you get a robe on.” Shadow stared at Sonic, his voice as monotone as usual but a small red hue betrayed him and made its way to his cheeks. “haha… y-yeah.”  Sonic smiled sheepishly and trudged his way over to the end of the bed were a snow white robe hung over the edge. Now becoming highly conscious of his skinless body he quickly tied the robe around him making sure as much of him was covered. He scratched a hand on the back of his head and chuckled nervously. “Guess we better go see Silver and tell him the awesome news, huh?”

Shadow sighed and rolled his eyes. “Oh c’mon, Shads. You can’t tell me that a heavenly being such as myself being awake from eternal slumber isn’t earth-shattering news that everyone should be rejoicing over.” Shadow walked up to Sonic and put himself right in front of the egotistical hedgie. “You want to make a bet, blue boy? People are going to find out, be a little excited because the one person those selfish, lazy people depend on to save them from such petty problems has returned so they don’t have to look after themselves and the next day they’ll continue living their lives without so much as a second thought to you. So no- it’s not earth-shattering and no-one will be celebrating over it.”

“Wow. Y’know, you make me feel like a toy in a kindergarten that some kid just plays with and dumps the second something more interesting comes up.” Sonic growled at Shadow- he was only joking around to try and get rid of the awkwardness but Shadow felt the need to turn into a total jerk!

“Hey, instead of you bitching like a teenage school girl, how about we go and do what you wanted to do- discard me and go running after Whity out there; something more interesting.” Shadow narrowed his eyes and bared his fangs in slight aggression. “Seriously?! You’re going to start playing the jealousy game now?! And you’re calling me a teenage school girl!”

Ignoring Sonic’s accusations Shadow again grabbed Sonic’s arm and wrapped it over his shoulders making his way out the room. “Hey! Let me go!” Enjoying how much this was making Sonic feel uncomfortable, Shadow smirked and snaked an arm around the other’s waist. “Goddamn it, Faker! Let me go!”

Shadow let out a gasp of mock surprise. “Sonic!” He watched Sonic struggling to get away and continued down the hall to Silver’s room. “How could a role model like you use such distasteful language?” Suddenly an idea swam its way to the top in Shadow’s mind. “What would your girlfriend say about that?”

Suddenly Sonic went still.

“Girlfriend?”

Bullseye.

“Yes. Isn’t that Rose girl your girlfriend?” Shadow could hardly contain the deep laughter that was threatening to make release as he watched Sonic look somewhat sick. “A-Amy?! Are you kidding me?! Nonononono- NO! She is NOT, I repeat, NOT my girlfriend. Look, just ‘cause she wants to get in my pants doesn’t suddenly mean we’re-“

“But you don’t wear pants.”

“It’s a figure of speech, Alien boy. Considering you’ve been living on Mobius for at least a couple of years now I thought you and your “greater than average and ultimate intelligence” would have figured that by now.” Sonic smirked darkly as he watched Shadow gritting his teeth as he continued mocking him. Sonic was about to continue until they suddenly came to a stop.

“We’re here.” Shadow called out to the figures in the room- Silver was sitting on the side of his bed talking to Amy and Blaze who were sitting in chairs parallel to Silver.

‘Are Blaze and Amy… holding … HANDS?’ Sonic thought to himself as he peered into the room which looked almost identical to his except for the huge amount of flowers that were in his. He watched as Silver was still conversing with the pyrokinetic feline.

“Everyone’s going to think we’re freaks now! No-one’s going to want our help anymore; all they’ll want is us gone and out of the picture.” Silver threw his hands in the air while Blaze lent forward and calmly placed a hand on Silver’s shoulder. “Silver, you need to understand that people soon become accustomed to new changes and will accept you. You need to be patient. You must also realise that people will understand the sacrifices you made to keep everyone from harm.” Silver sighed and slouched slightly.

“Ah, Blaze. You’re right- you’re always right.” He ended with a soft smile and looked over at the doorway noticing the two other skele-hogs waiting for the conversation to finish. His eyes widened when he saw Sonic.

“Sonic! You’re awake?!” Silver jumped off the bed and paced over, a huge smile spreading over his jaw. “Yep,” Sonic smiled and pushed himself lightly from Shadow. “awake and ready to run- well not quite. Gimme a bump.” He raised his fist into the air and was quickly rewarded with a fist bump from the ivory skeleton.

“Oh, Sonniku~! I’m so glad to see you safe and sound!”

Suddenly Sonic was wrapped by a very excited Amy Rose as she gave one of her world famous choke hugs. After a few seconds of her not letting go, Sonic begins struggling and squirming to get away. “Y-yeah, I’m happy to see you too, Amy.” Once Amy let him go he pulled gently on his robe to fix it back up and then faced the energetic pink hedgehog again. “So what’s been happening with you while I was out?”

Amy was pretty much jumping where she stood as she told him the events of the past 3 to 4 months. “Nothing much really but there is something really important that I need to tell you. Now please don’t be upset, but,” She grabbed his bony hands and brought them close to her as she gazed caringly into his eyes, “Blaze and I have been together for the past 2 months, so it looks like I’m not free for you anymore, Sonic.” Sonic just stared with his mouth gaped open as he processed what was just said. “Y-you and Blaze?” he looked up at the now bright red cat then back at the teen before him.

“I-I’m sorry if this makes you upset, Sonic but I think Blaze is really the best for me-“

“Upset?! Amy, if you’re happy then I’m happy! And I am absolutely ecstatic!” In a sudden slip of character Sonic lifted Amy in the air in a mighty hug and twirled around slightly, hugging her almost as tightly as she does for him. After a second he let her down and smiled. “Congrates, Ames! To you as well, Blaze. Wow, I knew you two had a thing for each other but I thought it would take a bit longer for you two to start doing something about it.” He ended with a chuckle and patted Amy’s head gently.

“Thank you, Sonic.” Blaze calmly spoke over the betraying blush that was still present on her muzzle.

Suddenly a knock was heard from behind Sonic and Shadow. They all faced the guest and smiled as they saw the familiar face of the kitsune. “Hey, Tails! What’s up, little bro?”

“I see you got yourself up and out with everyone but unfortunately,” turning to Blaze and Amy, “I’ll need to take these three for a few minutes to give them a little welcome back present. It’ll also give you two girls some privacy for a while.” Smiling at Sonic he extended an arm down the hall to lead them to their next destination. “This way, if you please.”

In a mock posh tone, Sonic grabbed the collar of his robe and tugged on it gently, lowering his eyelids half-way. “Mm, but of course, young Tails.” After a couple of seconds the two brothers burst into laughter as the exited the room. Sonic looked over his shoulder and waved a hand at the girls. “I’ll see you lovebirds later.”

“Bye, Sonic!”

Silver, Sonic and Tails began chatting away as Shadow strolled just behind them, making sure to keep himself out of the conversation. He frankly didn’t feel like speaking to Sonic- not after their smaller argument. As stupid as it was, he was genuinely hurt by Sonic’s words and he didn’t know why.

‘I mean we constantly throw remarks and insults at each other, so what’s so different about it now?’ Shadow shook his head as not a single answer made itself present. Suddenly the trio in front came to a stop before a large double door. It wasn’t like the other doors in the medical wards as those were made of either metal or plastic but these doors were a deep chocolate brown and were made from beautiful oak. “You don’t think this is a tad too fancy for a medical ward do you, Tails?” Sonic questions as he inspected it.

“Meh, it makes me feel fancy when I go into my workshop.” Tails shrugged and opened the door to the very familiar room of Tails’ workshop. Like usual tools and scrap pieces were littered around and covering nearly every empty area in the room. There was however a small clearing working much like a pathway to reach yet another room located at the back end of the shop. Before walking in to follow he young kitsune, Sonic turned his attention to the older skele-hog following behind.

“Yo, Shads. You okay?” Sonic smiled and lowered a brow showing at least somewhat of concern. Shadow huffed and brushed past. “Wow, no edgy remark or angst-filled speech as to why you’re on your own?”

“Do you want one?” Shadow mumbled as he continued walking with the younger keeping pace with him. “Not particularly, no- just was expecting one is all.”

The two reached the second doorway and entered- it was just as messy in there as it was in the previous room. Sonic spotted the young genius at one of the cupboards at the left side of the room and trotted over. “You need a hand there, Tails?”

Tails turned with blue material tangled in his arms and brightly smiled at his older brother. “If you mean by putting these on for me, sure!” Without an answer from Sonic, Tails thrust the tangled heap into his arms and carried over a bundle of white and black to Silver and Shadow. “Silver, Shadow, I know you two have been awake for some time now but I wanted to wait until Sonic was okay and awake before I gave you guys these. Amy, Blaze and I spent a lot of time on them... We tried making them as close to your fur colours as possible. I hope you like them.” Sonic, puzzled by the newly received material opened it up and tilted his head slightly in confusion. “Uh, what are these?”

“It’s called clothing, hedgehog.” Sonic lowered his eyelids in annoyance and slouched. “Clever deduction, Sherlock. Got anything else to uncover with your uncanny detective work?” Shadow smirked and placed the jumper over his head. “In fact I do. You wear it to stop you from committing an account of public indecency.”

“We have… uh… had fur covering our whole bodies so we didn’t need to wear clothes.” Sonic frowned as he put on the skinny jeans and jacket. Shadow smirked and placed a hand under his chin. “So you enjoyed strutting around naked then?” Sonic blushed and crossed his arms “You were just as naked as I was! Was makes you think you were in any more “decent” appearance than I was?!”

Shadow ruffled the fake fur on his chest which was identical to his white fur tuft and smirked. “I was better looking so I had an excuse for presenting myself.” Sonic noticed the fake fur and looked down at his jacket and whimpered slightly. “Hey, how come I don’t have chest fur?”

“You didn’t have any to begin with so you’re not going to have it now people will question how you’ve suddenly become a man otherwise.” Sonic’s cheeks flushed blue and he pouted. “You’re so mean, Shadow…” Shadow smirked and pulled the hood over his head. “And you’re a sook, Faker.” Pulling up his gloves, Sonic smirked and crouched down to the ground to buckle up his shoes. Once Shadow had turned his back Sonic growled playfully and jumped him tackling the ebony to the ground. “That’s it, you asked for it!” The two began wrestling each other as the kitsune and ebony watched with emotionless expressions. A sigh escaped Silver’s lips as he shook his head slightly.

“I swear we can’t leave those two alone for five minutes before one of them is trying to bite the other’s head off…” Tails nodded and hummed in agreement. “You’re telling me… Now o break them up.” Silver quickly snapped his head to face the young fox and stared at him in shock. “What?! No! They’ll kill me or worse pull me into it!” He ended raising his hands above his head in protest. Tails frowned and gazed over at Silver. “Quit being a baby. Just use your telekinesis, y’know *VWOOMSH!*” he spread his arms across his chest acting out Silver pulling the two away from one another. A sweatdrop fell as Silver shook his head in defeat. “Fine,” he groaned as he tugged back on his gloves, “but if I need a prolonged stay here, I swear to Chaos I will make your time looking after me misery.” Holding out his hands to the two rolling hedgies a soft turquoise aura surrounded his hands. Suddenly it enveloped the two and pulled Sonic away from Shadow leaving him floating in the air. “That is enough, guys!” Pinching the bridge of where his nose should be he sighed “You guys are so immatu-”

“Now that the prey is caught, the predator can begin the kill.” A deep growl came from Shadow as he aimed a Chaos Spear directly at the floating and unguarded Sonic. He smirked, his fangs slightly bearing. “Oh no you don’t!” Silver held onto Shadow and floated him next to Sonic clenching his fists ever so gently in annoyance slightly squeezing the skele-hedgies.

“Hey, hey! Careful, Pineapple-head! You’re gonna end up seriously hurting someone otherwise!” Silver watched as Sonic and Shadow squirmed in slight pain and frowned. “What?! But you two were just-“

“We were just wrestling, you idiot.” Shadow remarked.

“But you were pointing a Chaos Spear at him! I don’t think that’s exactly wrest-”

Shadow rolled his eyes and furrowed his brows in annoyance. “If I did fire it at him it would have only stunned him and left him dazed for 10 to 15 minutes. There wasn’t nearly enough Chaos Energy in it to do any real damage. Anyway it would have all been to shut Faker up for a bit.” Sonic began sarcastically laughing and began bickering with Shadow as Silver just peered at the two- he was at a total loss for words. How does anyone put up with these two? He thought to himself. Suddenly Sonic’s voice brought him out of his thoughts.

“Um… Silver, pal? Wanna let us go? You’re still squeezing us…”

Silver looked down at his hands then back at the two. “Huh?” after a few seconds he quickly released the hedgies and blushed slightly in embarrassment- a faint yellow tinge spreading across his face. “Hehe, yeah… sorry…”

Both landed on their feet; Shadow stood up and brushed off his ‘chest fur’. “As violent towards one another as we may seem, Sonic and I do not believe in senseless and absurd fighting. And I seriously wanted to hurt him,” He smirked and peered over at Sonic, “I would have beaten him to a pulp from the word go.” He crossed his arms and watched in amusement as Sonic began fuming. A loud sigh came from behind Silver and everyone turned to face the speaker. “Look, I guess you guys have really weird ways of expressing your feelings or whatever,” he carelessly flapped his hand at the sapphire and black hedgehogs and placed his other hand firmly on his hip. “But now that you guys are all awake and… uh… lively, I guess, I’d like to conduct some experiments on you guys; try to figure out how you’re alive yet… skeletons…” Sonic grinned and gave a thumbs up towards his brother. “Sure thing, li’l bro! Anything to help out sort out what’s going on!”

Shadow hummed in agreement but only grimaced further- after all the experiments he had to go through with G.U.N. he hated the idea of having to go through anymore- even if it was Tails in charge of them and not some mad man with the crazy idea of using Shadow as a weapon.

“Geez, Shadow. Would you lighten up a bit? Chaos, most of the time you act like you’ve got a 10-inch stick up your back end.” Realising that Shadow heard exactly none of what was said, he turned to Silver beside him and draped an arm over the other’s shoulder. “Whaddya say, Silver? You in or you out?” Silver smiled and placed his hands on his waist. “I’m in, definitely! If we can figure out what happened to us the sooner we can get back to normal!” Sonic faced the fox and smiled. “And we will, won’t we, bro?”

Tails began fidgeting with his namesakes and blushed in embarrassment. “Well unless I can find out the problem I don’t know if we actually can.” His face immediately brightened, “The sooner we get the experiments done, the sooner I can give you an answer!”

Making his way over to Tails, Sonic gently ruffled the bangs on his head and chuckled. “That’s more like it, now let’s do it to it!” he peered over at Shadow and realised that he was in his own little world. “C’mon, Shads! Get your head outta the clouds!” he left the room with the kitsune and ivory hedgehog waiting for Shadow to soon follow.

He realised that he wasn’t paying attention to anything that was just said as Sonic’s joke kept replaying in his head. “A-a 10-inch WHAT?! Is he-?” Suddenly Sonic’s head popped out from around the corner and leaned gently against the frame. “Hurry up your Ultimate ass will you?” he winked, smirking as he vanished out of Shadow’s view once again. Shadow stared at where Sonic once was and felt a small heat slowly make its way onto his cheeks. Clenching his fists in frustration he landed a punch onto one of the nearby filing cabinets; the contents now flying out all over the floor. “Stupid Faker! I’m gonna kick your ass from here to Down Unda!” Looking at the mess on the floor, he grunts then stormed out of the room without a second thought.

The four reached another small room within the lab but it was considerably larger as machines and other testing equipment were laid out in an organised manner. Even though Sonic had been inside numerous times, he still had trouble wrapping his head around all the machines and their functions- as much as he hated to admit it; he had trouble with working the washing machine let alone trying to figure out how everything else in here worked. The room was split into two- on half was filled with tubes and wires connected to machines of various sizes and in the other huge monitors that littered the walls with charts and statistics playing over the screens. Sonic whistled in awe and smirked, “No matter how many times I come in here it always does my head in,”

“For someone as feeble-minded as you, it’s no surprise.”

Sonic gritted his teeth in annoyance and turned on his heels advancing on the now smirking skele-hog. Before he could reach Shadow, Tails quickly intervened spreading his arms between the two and gently placing his palms against their chests. “Woahwoahwoahwoahwoah WOAH! Before you to even think about killing each other we need to get these tests underway.” He waited and watched for Sonic to relax. Sonic stepped back and huffed in annoyance; Tails sighed and placed a palm on his forehead in relief. “All I want done is full body CAT scans to make sure if there might possibly be supernatural phenomenon keeping you three alive.” Blushing slightly and scratching his ear Tails smiled sheepishly and looked away from the three skeletons, “I know you guys just got them, and I’m really sorry, but I need you all to undress for me; shoes and gloves included.”

A sudden gust a wind blew through the room as Sonic immediately stood, somewhat proudly, before the other three with his clothes draped over his left arm and his shoes in his right hand. “Done!” he beamed with a wide grin. A small groan was heard behind him from the youngest hedgehog. “Uh, but I just got comfortable in these…” Silver whined slightly earning an irritated sigh from Shadow.

“You know, for someone who’s just recently turned 16 you really do sound like a 6-year-old child,” now turning his attention to the bare skele-hog, Shadow frowned in disappointment and lowered his eyelids, “and I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so… proud… of being naked in front of his friends.” He began removing his gloves and jumper pulling it over his head then throwing it to a nearby chair. “oh, boo,” Sonic pouted and leant lightly on the balls of his feet planting his hands on his pelvis, “you’re just jealous that I’m better looking than you even without the finer details. But, hey, if what I’ve got is good then why not let everyone see? I ain’t ashamed of my sexiness!”

Shadow stared blankly at him, his expression unreadable and pointed a finger towards the ivory skele-hog to the left of him. “In your current state your physical appearances are near identical to both Silver and I. The only differences are I still have my red streaks next to my eyes and Silver still wears eyeliner-“

“I don’t wear eyeliner, dang it!”

Shadow rolled his eyes and smirked, “Sure you don’t.” He kicked off his skates and sat in the chair where his jumper was. “Hey, guys? No more fighting please?” Tails grabbed his Miles Electric from a small desk and tapped in a code before the monitor hummed to life. Satisfied, he gave a quick nod and curled his finger at Silver indicating for him to follow the young kitsune. “Alright, Silver, I’ll see you first.”

“Uh, be there in a sec.” He began awkwardly fiddling with the clasps on his boots and removed his pants before placing them neatly on the ground and following the fox-boy into the testing area. “Alright, coming!”

Stretching slightly, Sonic looked over his shoulder and found Shadow oddly staring at his lower back.

“Um, do you mind, Shads?”

“What?”

Lowering his eyelids halfway, Sonic turned and smirked, “Look, I get it. I know I’m probably one of the sexiest creatures you’ve ever seen but that doesn’t mean I’m a poster you can stare at. You realise you can actually buy posters if you wanted?”

Slightly blushing, Shadow widened his eyes and met his with Sonic’s. “I-I wasn’t staring-“

“So you’re not disagreeing with me being the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen?”

Shadow’s blush darkened and spread as he looked away, “You’re an idiot…” he mumbled. Sonic put a hand to where his ear would have been and cupped it slightly as if trying to catch what the other said. “I’m not hearing any denial.”

Shadow opened his mouth to protest but he realised he had nothing to come back with. He closed his mouth and turned completely away from the speedster slouching and keeping his face out of view as his face was now completely red. Sonic furrowed his brows in confusion and smiled awkwardly.

**_Is he serious? Does he actually like m-_ **

A sudden high-pitched squeal from the testing room brought Sonic out of his thoughts as he covered his ears and gritted his teeth slightly in pain as he watched Silver walk out with a bony hand resting on his forehead. “I don’t know if it’s just me or not, but that machine takes a lot of energy out of a person,” He collapsed on a chair next to Sonic and Shadow and sighed in exhaustion, “I seriously need to sit down. Tails walked into the room as he analysed the monitor with a confused look. Not even looking up he called for Shadow. “Alright, Shadow. You’re up.” He quickly peered up and noticed something about Shadow. “Um, Shadow?”

“Y-yeah?”

“I said everything needs to be taken off. That includes your inhibitor rings; they’ll ruin the frequency readings otherwise.”

Reaching for his rings Shadow released his breath in relief as his blushing went unnoticed by the young boy. Soon they were unclasped and were shoved into Sonic’s chest as the two walked into the testing room. Silver raised a brow and gazed over at Sonic who was also blushing slightly. “Geez, what happened between you two while I was busy?”

“N-nothing!” Sonic crossed his arms in front of his chest like an X and furiously shook his head. “Right, then What’s Shadow all edgy about?”

Sonic scratched his neck and smirked, “Eh, nothin’, just got in all mad and flustered but what can I do? It’s just so much fun,” he shrugged and closed his eyes, smiling. Opening one eye, he peered at the Ivory. “So what’s it like in there?” Silver sat up and propped his elbows on his knees, his chin resting on his palms. “It’s really dark in there; the only real lights you can see are from the machinery. I almost tripped over the cables on the floor four times just on the way in.” He sighed and grabbed his clothes and began putting it all back on. “I can never understand any of the stuff that goes hum in here yet Tails knows it all as perfectly as I know how to get in Starfish-Head’s fur.” Sonic snickered lightly at the new found nickname for Shadow.

“You certainly are perfectly capable at rubbing someone’s fur the wrong way.” Silver rolled his eyes as he finished clasping his gloves and boots. “Yeah, but I always make it up to them later. I just don’t know what Shadow likes or what cheers him up,” Sonic crossed his arms and sighed sadly, creasing his brows showing a look of worry and sadness, “It would be nice for him to just lighten up a little more. He’s always so angry and ‘I just wanna be alone’ style…”

Pulling up his hood, Silver sighed, “Well I don’t think mocking him and making fun of him constantly is exactly going to make him smile, seriously. It’s just going to piss him off more. I’m surprised he hasn’t gone out of his way to seriously hurt you yet.”

It wouldn’t be that surprising if you knew why… Sonic thought to himself as he turned towards the testing room. “But that’s what I’m like with all of my friends; tease ‘em a little then we make a joke of it later. His problem is he doesn’t have a sense of humour.” He began spinning one of Shadow’s rings around his index finger, “Look, I get that’s he’s had a pretty messed up past and lost the one person who really cared about him, but if he learnt to lighten up he’d be able to meet others who could make him happier; even if he has already met them.”

Suddenly, Sonic felt something cold slip around his throat. He realised the ring had slipped from his finger and latched itself onto him like a collar. “AGHK!!” Sonic began tugging at the ring hoping to remove it before the two returned but it wouldn’t budge. “Hey, help me get this off, will ya?”

Silver quickly jumped from the chair and started looking for a way to remove the ring. “It’s sealed! There’s no way of getting it off! How did it even clasp onto you?”

“I don’t know, it just did!” The high-pitched squeal returned and the two skele-hogs stared in horror at the doorway. “Hurry up! Shadow’s coming back and he’s gonna kill me!!”

They could hear the darker hedgehog’s voice coming from the room and began fumbling with the ring.

“You don’t happen to have any more pudding in your kitchen, do you?”

“Yeah, I do, but please don’t eat around me without your clothes on. What happened just then freaked me out…” Tails and Shadow entered the room; Shadow had a spoon in his mouth and Tails was slightly cringing. “Alright, Sonic. Your tu-!” Looking at the inhibitor ring around Sonic’s neck he cocked his head slightly to the side. “Um, why are you wearing Shadow’s ring like a collar?” Shadow barely stifled a laughed as he watched Sonic freaking out in front of him. Sonic raised his hands in defence and sweat dropped. “It just slipped on! I was twirling it on my finger when it slipped off and *SNAP* it’s stuck around my throat!”

Shadow kept a poker face as he walked over to him and wrapped a hand around the other’s neck. Silver jumped up and tried to stop Shadow. “It was just an accident, Shadow! You don’t need to strangle Sonic because of it!” Ignoring Silver, Shadow twisted his hand in an anti-clockwise direction and a loud snap was heard.

“OH MY GODS, SHADOW!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!”

Removing the ring from Sonic he placed it back onto his wrist and grabbed the others from him. “Strangle Sonic? Why on Mobius would I do that? That’s just childish and absurd behaviour.” Shadow grunted and grabbed his clothes putting them back on.  “Uh…” that was all Silver could say on the situation. Sighing in defeat he flopped back into his chair. Rubbing his throat Sonic gave Shadow a gentle smile, “Thanks, Shads.” Grunting and turning away Shadow pulled his hood back over his head, “Whatever, Faker…”

Smiling in relief, Tails waved his hand at Sonic indicating for him to follow, “Right, well come on, Sonic. Let’s get you tested. Follow me.” Placing his clothing onto the desk in a rush Sonic smiled and quickly followed the young kitsune. “Okay, bro!” The room was nearly pitch black; it was small and tightly filled with machinery of all kinds. Geez, Silver wasn’t kidding; you can’t see a thing in here… “Alright, I need you to lie here,” patting a bench inside of a large tube, “and for just 15 seconds I need you to be perfectly still.” Tails brushed past Sonic into a small area with control panels and smaller monitors. He looked back at his skeleton brother and frowned slightly, “and you don’t get any of my lunch either.” He pointed a gloved finger at the skele-hog. Placing himself on the bench, Sonic smirked and rolled his eyes, “Wouldn’t think of it!”

Tails smiled and pulled a string directly above him turning on a small overhead light hanging from the ceiling. After typing something onto the control panel, the machine roared to life; the tube slowly making its way over Sonic’s body- a slight humming coming from it. After ten seconds the humming died down as the scan finished at Sonic’s feet and quickly returned back to the head. Once it had reached the head again a high pitched metallic squeal echoed through the room as the machine turns itself off. Tails walked over with his handheld monitor as he began analysing the information relaying over the screen. “Well, we’re done. Let’s get you dressed and I’ll get us some lunch prepared.”

Turning on the bench and letting his legs drop over, Sonic jumped off and stretched his legs, “You, my friend, have some of the best ideas ever!”

Exiting the room with Sonic, Tails smiled and brought a hand onto his chest smirking slightly. “Well, I don’t want to brag but I think I do!” Tails looked over at the desk to give Sonic his clothes back, he halted mid reach and stared at the empty space. Quickly looking around to see any sign of Sonic’s clothes he spotted Shadow smugly watching with his hands crossed over his chest; a smirk plastering his jaw. Glaring at the dark hedgehog, Tails frowned and placed his hands on his hips.

“Alright, what did you do with them?”

“With what?”

Angrily pointing a finger at him Tails slightly leant forward and frowned. “Don’t play dumb! What did you do with Sonic’s clothes?” Shadow shook his head and smirked slightly showing his fangs. “Don’t look at me, I haven’t touched them. Not that I think it’ll matter too much to Sonic who, after all,” Shadow lifted his hands and bent his fingers indicating quotation marks, “’isn’t ashamed of his so-called sexiness’.” Sonic lowered his lids and frowned “Oh ha ha. Aren’t you quite the comedian? Just give me back my clothes, it’s getting really chilly down here.” He smirked and turned his gaze to Tails, “speakin’ of chilli-” Tails smiled and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get to it soon. Hey, where’s Silver?” Shadow shrugged and grunted his response, causing Tails to pout. “Well he better hurry back soon ‘cause I’m not starting lunch ‘til he gets back and I haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday.”

Sonic smirked and wrapped his arm around Tails’ shoulders. “Yeah, well I haven’t eaten in fourteen weeks so I’ve been cooking up myself one heck of an appetite!” He laughed as he ruffled his hand through his brother’s bangs. “Sonic~!” Tails giggled as he swatted away the elder’s hand. Sudden huffing was heard as a tired Silver ran back into the room. “Hey, guys! Sorry ‘bout that, really needed to… uh… go…” he put his hands on his hips and stared at the trio. Pointing at Tails, “What are you so miffed about,” pointing at Sonic, “why are you still naked, “ finally pointing at Shadow, “and what the heck are you so damn happy about?”

Sonic sighed and placed his hands on Silver’s shoulders, “it doesn’t matter but more importantly; do you know where the heck my clothes are ‘cause Mister Grumpypants over there won’t tell me.” Silver shook his head and shrugged, “Sorry; don’t got ‘em.” He turned and narrowed his eyes at Shadow, “What did you do with them?” Shadow narrowed his eyes and glared daggers at the three who were simultaneously returning his glare, “I didn’t do anything to his damn clothes! If you had just opened your eyes you all would have noticed they’re still on the desk; hidden under Tails’ mess thanks to Sonic’s carelessness.” He ended with a huff, turning away from his audience. Tails scratched the back of his neck and blushed slightly from embarrassment, “Sorry, Shadow. Guess we shouldn’t jump to conclusions, huh?”

“Whatever, all that matters is that now I have my clothes which means the sooner we can get to eating!” Sonic quickly walked over to the desk and grabbed his clothes almost instantly putting them on. He began hopping about trying to put on his shoe and fell backwards right onto Shadow’s lap. Shadow just stared, blushing with his arms crossed as Sonic looked up and smirked, “Thanks for the soft landing, Shadow,” Looking over at Tails and cocking his head towards the ebony skele-hog, “See? Told ya he was just a huge softie!”

Sonic bounced off of Shadow’s lap and turned. He patted Shadow’s head and smiled before turning to leave the room with Tails who sighed and rubbed his eyes, yawning slightly. “Yeah, I guess so,” he responded with slight retardation in his voice, “C’mon guys, let’s head up. I’ll get the results in about an hour.” He waved his hand towards the doorway leading out of the medical ward into Sonic and Tails’ shared house. Soon they reached the living room and Tails pointed towards the couch and recliners. “Alright, you guys get comfy and wait in here while I get us all some lunch made up.” Disobeying the fox’s request Shadow walked over to the kitchen and held his hand out in front of Tails, stopping the boy in his tracks. “You’re tired,” he informed, “anyone can see that. You go and rest for a while and I’ll prepare our food instead. I’ll wake you up when it’s ready.” Tails smiled and gave Shadow’s shoulder a quick pat as he tried to stifle another yawn. “Thanks, I haven’t slept in nearly two days.” He turned and waved at the skele-hog trio before making his way down the hall to his bedroom.

Shadow glared at Sonic then turned and began working in the kitchen. Sonic sweat dropped and scratched the back of his neck. He flopped into one of the recliners and hung his legs over the arm. On the other side of a large burgundy wood coffee table was an identical leather recliner and beside them was a large yellow couch with faint floral patterning on it.

“Yo, Shadow? Can I get mine with extra chilli?!” Shadow popped hid head out from the kitchen and frowned. “I’m not your personal slave, hedgehog.” The two stared at each other until Shadow sighed and crossed his arms; Sonic was starting to push his buttons especially with those pleading puppy-dog eyes that Shadow couldn’t stand any longer. He turned his attention to Silver who sat at the end of the couch sitting on Sonic’s end and sighed.

“Anything in particular you would care for, Silver?”

Silver shrugged and smiled. “I’m not particularly fazed. I just need to eat.” He looked over at Sonic, who had managed to lie upside down on the recliner and his feet were dangling from the head, then looked back at Shadow. “I guess I’ll have chilli dogs as well, I mean, I’ve never tried one before so I’m slightly interested.” He added placing a finger to his chin. Shadow hummed and nodded understanding; he turned back into the kitchen and began prepping the food.

Silver looked back at the cobalt hero and immediately sweat dropped.

“What?”

Sonic sat up and continued staring at Silver with a shocked expression.

“You’ve never had a chilli dog before?! Man, you’ve been missin’ out! What do you guys eat in the future anyway?” Silver frowned and leant his elbow on the arm of the couch resting his head on his palm.

“What do you mean? We eat exactly the same things you guys do. Just we need to ration our food a little more carefully than here. The nutrients lying beneath the soil aren’t as plentiful in my time, so the flora is slightly affected leading the wildlife being a little leaner. I remember a time when my world was in such as a state of disaster nothing could be grown for 6 months. Many people died of malnutrition and starvation but those were just some of the hardships we had to face.”

Sonic felt a slight twang in his chest starting to feel guilty for asking; he didn’t think something like that would happen in the future. He looked down at his hands but continued listening to Silver’s explanations.

“Trading between political powers had almost ceased during this time, everyone looking after themselves and their people. There were periods of time where I wouldn’t get to eat in a week and if I did, they would have been in small amounts. Thankfully the water hadn’t been affected or contaminated or many more of us, more than likely including me, would have passed away. Everyone here always talks about how the future can only get better from here, but something in my past, not too far in your future, erupts my world into suffering. That is why I’m here,” he put a hand on Sonic’s shoulder causing the other to look up.”I know you have been questioning my presence in your timeline. I just thought it would be best to tell you now before it happens.”

“What causes your, our, world to fall apart?”

Silver removed his hand, placing it into his lap and sighed sadly. “I-I don’t know. All I know is that it occurred during this time period. Something destroyed much of the earth; many creatures and beasts of destruction all removed from their stances in time to be brought together in one; a creature of flames, of water and an army of the extraterrestrial. I read somewhere that a creature of pure darkness ripped these parties from their timelines to create one of the greatest powers to ever be faced.”

Sonic stared at Silver with disbelief, his eyes wide and fully attentive. “Can’t we destroy them before this darkness guy uses them?”

“Then he will only go back further in time and retrieve them from there.”

Sighing and gritting his teeth, Sonic crossed his arms and closed his eyes. “No offence but time travel is a pain in the neck. Hey, but don’t you have the last Chronos stone?” Silver nodded, “While many were destroyed in fear of creating rifts throughout the time-space continuum, only two were left. One was given to me in full trust that I use it to help my world while the other was stolen by a criminal from the temple. No-one knows who they are but their figure has been seen and they are described as a black hedgehog. I’ve spoken with a few witnesses and they all tell me the hedgehog has a secondary pallet but are unsure what colour.”

Fearing the worst, Sonic quietened his voice just above a whisper. “You… you don’t think it could be Shadow do you?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know, but my suspicions about him are there… Have you ever met another black hedgehog?”

Sonic scratched his head in thought but slowly shook his head. “Not that I can recall, sorry.”

Silver smiled and placed a hand gently on Sonic’s. “it’s alright. I’m sure we’ll find out sooner or later. Though I do fear it could be someone dear to us…”

Shadow stood behind the wall next to the doorway, his engineered hearing picking up everything from their short conversation. So the hedgehogs suspect it could be me… he turned with a “tsk” back into the kitchen to finish preparing the final components of the meals. He grabbed the mushrooms, onions and capsicums and began dicing them at supersonic speeds, his reflexes fast enough so has not to slice off his fingers. With a grunt, he tossed the vegetables into the pot with the beef. Allowing it to brown lightly he soon added the Worcestershire and crushed tomatoes. Huffing he threw in barbeque sauce and a variety of spices. Not caring about how much was put in he shook a large amount of chilli powder into the mix. Turning in on full heat, Shadow carefully turned the ingredients.

Damn, stupid, idiot Faker! After all we’ve been through and he still doesn’t trust me! He thought to himself as he put the bread rolls on the grill to toast, And I’m making him and Silver lunch for crying out loud! Maybe I should add rat poison in? Grabbing the chef’s knife, he stabbed it into the breadboard, stabbing right through it until it hit the bench making a loud bang.

The two skele-hogs in the lounge jumped in their seats, the bang startling both of them. Sonic ran into the kitchen to check on Shadow’s condition. He had better not have hurt himself Sonic thought as he entered the kitchen. “Shadow?! Are you okay?!”

Shadow glared at Sonic then looked back at the breadboard, releasing his grip on the knife, “I’m fine, just… thinking…” The younger walked over and calmly put a hand on Shadow’s shoulder in an attempt of calming him. “You sure?” Shadow slapped his hand away and glared daggers at him. “I’m fine, Faker. Now leave me alone before I regret using this knife.”

Sonic held his hands in the air as if in protest and took a couple of steps back. “Whatever you say.” He turned to walk out the room but stopped at the doorway.

“By the way, the food smells great but I think you’re burning the rolls.”

He walked out of the room snickering as Shadow rushed to get the rolls out of the grill before they turned completely black.

Pushing his plate forward after eating nearly 15 chilidogs (3 of which were Shadow’s), Sonic leant back on his chair and burped raising his feet onto the coffee table. “Damn, Shadow! Those were some of the best chilli dogs I’ve ever eaten.” He looked over at the still sleepy Tails and smiled, “No offence, buddy.”

Tails smiled and waved a hand at his brother. “None taken, I can’t always be the best. After all, I’m a mechanic; not a chef.”

“Have you recognised what is stabilising our physical attributes?” Shadow huffed from the couch.

Grabbing his Miles Electric from the table, Tails nodded and unlocked it. “Yeah, the results from the scan just came in not too long ago. My hypothesis was correct; your bodies no longer require blood or organs to keep yourselves alive. Your bodies are now completely dependent on the surrounding Chaos Energy. The only side effect though is that because your body spends most of its time processing the energy, your bodies are now slightly weaker and you take damage easier. On the brighter side, though, you can now manipulate the powers of Chaos without the use of a Chaos Emerald. You guys are pretty much living, breathing Chaos Emeralds. All three of you will be able to detect the Chaos auras and beings with higher clarity.”

“Shit” Shadow mumbled slightly to himself.

Sonic ever so slightly picked up what Shadow said and turned his focus to him. “Is something the matter, Shads?”

He shook his head and looked away. “It’s nothing and stop calling me ‘Shads’, my name is ‘Shadow’.” Sonic smirked and crossed his arms over his chest “Then you stop calling me ‘Faker’ or ‘Hedgehog’ since my name is ‘Sonic’.” Said hedgehog leans over to poke at Shadow’s cheek. At that exact same time, Shadow turned to glare at Sonic but immediately felt something intrude into his mouth. As fast as anything Sonic quickly pulls back his hand and wiped it on his jacket; blushing a bright shade of blue laughing awkwardly to himself. In embarrassment, he hid his face in his other hand.

Tails and Silver stared at the two with blank expressions on their faces.

“Riiiiight… I’m going to try and forget that that just happened…” Tails cleared his throat and regained the attention of the sapphire and raven skele-hogs. “By reading the Chaos auras you can now read the true emotions of people. Their auras will change hue (colour) depending on their emotions. As your bodies are still weak, it’ll take time before you’re able to achieve these abilities. I don’t know how long until you’re able to, though.”

“Do you know if our bodies can be reversed back to their normal states?” Silver piped up and questioned cautiously; worried the answer wouldn’t be good.

Tails hummed and placed a hand on his chin looking up slightly in thought, “My only guess so far is that the Chaos Emeralds can drain most of the Chaos energy out of your bodies, stabilising them back to their normal amounts.”

Bounding out of his chair, Sonic stretched and gave his brother his signature grin, “Looks like it’s up to us to go find the Chaos Emeralds then! Any idea on where they are, Tails?”

Tails typed something onto his Electric and stared at the screen for several seconds searching for reading on the Chaos Emeralds. When the monitor beeped he gasped slightly. Sonic cocked and eyebrow. “What’s wrong, bud?”

“It’s not a case of ‘where’, but ‘when’.”


	3. First Steps

"What? What do you mean ‘when'?"

All three skele-hogs stared at the young fox with confusion who turned his attention back to the Miles Electric in his hands.

"The Chaos Emeralds usually disperse to different locations over the planet; I don't know why but this time they've separated throughout time!" Tails stated shocked yet a small ring of excitement was hinted in his voice. Shadow furrowed his brows and turned his attention to the future ‘hog, "Time?" Silver noticed Shadow's gaze and frowned crossing his arms. "It's not my fault. Just because I come from another time doesn't mean I plotted this."

"I wasn't assuming anything. I just thought you would know best about how this oddity could possibly occur." The ebony added with an irritated huff and snarled slightly. Tails raised a hand to his chin and pondered slightly over such a strange occurrence. "My best guess is that because the Emeralds bind both space and time, they instead travelled throughout our past, thus making it harder for anyone to collect them," Sonic smiled and wrapped an arm around Tails' shoulder. "But we can do it right?! I'm sure you've got some fancy sort of machine to help us! You always do!" He gave his signature grin and thumbs up. Tails blushed slightly from all the praising and nodded, "I-I think I might. It's more than likely a little old if I do have one, but it shouldn't take me long to fix it up again."

Giving his brother's head a gentle pat and jabbed a thumb at his chest, Sonic smiled and winked, "Well let me know if there are any spare parts you need me to grab!" Tails hummed and nodded; he grabbed his Electric and chilli dog (which he refused Sonic eating- after all it was the only food he had eaten in nearly two days) and began making his way out of the lounge. "Will do! I'll get started looking for it now and I'll let you guys know if I need any help!" he waved running down the hall to the lab. Silence instilled around the trio as they took in the information.

"Shadow…?"

Shadow looked up at the cobalt who had sat beside him and snaked an arm over the ebony's shoulder. Shadow huffed slightly and tried to shrug off the hand, "What do you want, Sonic?"

"You seem really on edge since we came back from the hospital… I know my humour hasn't helped and look… I'm… uh… sorry. I've been a jerk to you… and… yeah…" Sonic averted his gaze and scratched the back of his neck. Dropping his arm he stood up from the couch and began walking down the hall to one of the bedrooms. Shadow stared wide-eyed as the other left. What the hell just happened?! Shadow shook his head at himself and sighed somewhat regretting what he was about to do. "Why do you care how I feel?"

Sonic stopped in his tracks and turned his head slightly, but not enough for Shadow to clearly see his face. "Well, why wouldn't I? You're one of my closest friends and I've been treating you poorly." Sonic began blushing and tugged his hood over his face making sure no-one would see it. "I know it seems I only enjoy getting you all miffed and annoyed but… I'm only trying to make you happy. You always seem really upset and quiet and… ya know… I enjoy your company… even if all you want to do is rip off my head…" He shook his head and shoved his hands lazily into his pockets continuing again down the hall. "Well, I'm gonna take a nap for a while. Wake me up when it's dinner or if Tails needs me."

Shadow raised his hand slightly and gave Sonic a quick wave, even if the other didn't see it. Sighing he placed a hand on his head and sat on the couch next to Silver.

"Shadow?"

"I don't get him, Silver." He suddenly blurted out to the ivory, "One second he's all hyperactive and annoying then the next he's all apologetic. He's like a puzzle where the pieces are constantly changing and never fit in the right place, and just when I think I finally have him figured out he goes and changes the pieces again. I don't know what to do with him, Silver. I don't know how to feel about him." He gave another sigh of frustration and lifted himself from the couch, making his way to the front door. "Where are you going?" Silver questioned quietly. Keeping his back to him, Shadow fixed his hood and placed a hand on the door knob. "Just going for a run, I need to clear my head. Everything's been… eventful. I just need to clear my head. I won't be long, I'll be back no longer than 30 minutes." He walked out and gently closed the door behind him. Stretching, he took a deep breath and speed off in a blur.

It was pitch black. The only thing that could be heard was Sonic's breathing, the only light radiating off of him.

Sonic scratched his head finding himself covered in his fur once again. He twitched his ears, wagged his tail and stroked his spikes, "I don't care if this is just a dream," he stated smiling, "it's good to be back to normal. He looked around at his environment and immediately frowned. "It's one of those dreams again. Everything is drab and dull. Maybe we could get some green and checkers, hm?" He clapped his hands hoping for the Green Hill environment but instead fire and destruction enveloped him. "W-what?!" He inspected around him and found…

"Shadow?!"

Shadow's figure was holding Silver by his fringe, his head clearly decapitated from the body. Shadow turned and immediately threw the head to the side. His body was splashed with blood all over, much of it still dripping from his hands. "Hahaha, Sonic. I'm most pleased to see you here. Maybe you wish to end your mortal suffering with that traitor over there?" He spat pointing to the dead body behind him, "You always stood up for him; protected him with your life. Maybe you would be just as happy with him in death as you would in life.

Sonic's hands started shaking as he watched his closest friend advancing towards him. "Why are you doing this?! What do you mean "traitor"?! Silver hasn't betrayed us!"

Turning his head to the side, Shadow narrowed his eyes and stared at Sonic with a smirk. "Not yet he hasn't but soon he will. It's all a matter of time, Sonic." Turning his body straight at Sonic he rushed forward into the wall behind them, his right arm across Sonic's throat while his left was positioned directly centre of his stomach. He slowly began lifting him, pushing Sonic further up the wall. Shadow's left hand slowly transformed into a sharp point, lower his hand to Sonic's navel.

"Everyone eventually betrays everyone," he began slowly pushing his hand into Sonic breaking through the flesh, smirking as Sonic began screaming in pain, tears falling down his eyes as he tried to remove Shadow's hand from his throat and stomach.

"Even you, Hero."

Shadow quickly thrust his hand straight through Sonic's stomach, his eyes becoming green and reptilian.

"ARGGGH!!!!" Sonic bolted upright from the spare bed he was currently in, the sheets drenched in sweat, his clothes also covered in sweat. He was breathing heavily and placed a hand on his head, gently rubbing his eyes feeling the trail of tears on his bony cheeks. He quickly got out of his bed and rushed out the room, straight into the living room making sure on Silver's wellbeing. While rushing in he bumped into Shadow.

"Urgh… ow…"

Shadow raised a hand to his forehead and shook his head slightly. He opened one of his eyes and stood up offering his hand for Sonic. "Are you alright, Sonic? You were screaming pretty loudly." Shadow couldn't help but smirk at his last remark. Sonic stared at the offered hand and hesitated slightly but accepted his help. Sonic stood up and gently brushed off his pants. "Y-yeah, I'm fine. Just a bad dream I guess." He suddenly blushed as he felt something brushing on his chest.

"I think it was a bit more than just a simple ‘bad dream'. Look, you have scratch marks all over your upper chest as if you were clawing at something." Shadow began gently tracing his finger over the markings; he looked up he saw Sonic blushing furiously. "I know a thing or two about ‘bad dreams'."

Sonic took in a sharp breath of air and gently pushed Shadow's hand away. "Like I said, it was just a bad dream. Now if you'll excuse me…" Sonic walked passed but stopped as he heard a soft chuckle from the elder. "Since when did you need my permission?" Shadow smirked and crossed his arms. Sonic turned and poked Shadow in the chest as he gave a devilish smirk. "I never did and never will," he purred slightly as winked and turned pulling his hands behind his head. "Alright, I'm gonna check on Silver now. Something feels… off." The azure brisked down the hall leaving Shadow to ponder over his statement.

Never will?

Silver looked up from his book as he heard the familiar sound of tapping sneakers. "Sonic, are you okay? You're completely covered in sweat… and scratch marks. You didn't get in another fight with Shadow did you?" A quick flash of the dream played in Sonic's mind leaving him shuddering slightly, Ugh… "Nah, just a bad dream. Um, are you okay?"

"Of course, I've just been doing some study. Why?"

Sonic scratched under his nose-hole and shifted his gaze slightly to his left, "Just… had a bad feeling something happened, y'know?" Silver chuckled slightly and smiled. "It's alright, I'm fine."

"Hehe, yeah. Anyway, how long was I out for?"

Silver closed his book and floated over to the bookshelf. "Roughly 40 minutes. Shadow only got back from his run 10 minutes ago. He was heading to the bathroom to go grab a shower before waking you. Guess it was a good thing he did."

Sonic subconsciously began rubbing his scratch marks, "Yeah…" What the hell was going on? Why was Shadow attacking me? And it wasn't like our normal little fights, he went out of his way to kill Silver and I. What does he mean calling Silver a traitor? He hasn't done anything to us… has he? "Hehe, I'm going paranoid…"

"What was that?"

"Nothing," looking down the hall, Sonic began feeling somewhat concerned about his friend's motifs. Sonic looked back at Silver and shrugged. "I'm gonna see how long Shadow's gonna be in the Shower for, ‘cause I need a serious wash as well as my clothes."

"Alright then, just don't drown when you have one."

Sonic rolled his eyes and dropped his hands into his pockets. "Oh ha ha." He ran and reached the bathroom in a second finding the door closed but he could gently hear humming coming from the other side over the sound of the shower. "Hm?" Shadow sings? He raised his hand to knock but suddenly heard Tails calling for him.

"Comin', pal! Be there in half a sec."

He listened to Shadow for another second before rushing to see with Tails.

Shadow froze as he heard Sonic calling from the other side of the door and blushed madly. What the hell was he planning on doing?!

"Hey, Tails! What's up?" Sonic skidded to a halt at the entrance of the lab as the young fox looked and smiled gently giving his brother a short wave. "What took you so long? It took you nearly two seconds to get here…" Blushing slightly the azure scratched the back of his neck and grinned, "N-nothin', I was just about to ask Shadow how much longer he was going to be in the shower for. I really need one…"

"I didn't take you for the perverted type-"

"IT WASN'T LIKE THAT!!!" Sonic began waving his hands in front of his face in defence and shook his head furiously, "I was about to knock on the door and ask him with the door still closed!!" Tails covered his mouth and tried to stifle a laugh threatening to make itself heard. "Yeah yeah, sure you were… anyway, it might actually be a good idea to get him put soon. I want to give you guys something." The skele-hog smiled and cocked his head slightly and lowered his eyelids; he lazily shoved his hands into his pockets and turned on his heels. "Sure, I'll that it gets done." He left the room and soon reached the bathroom again and could still hear Shadow humming, which quickly turned into singing.

"Everybody tries to be straight but things are still unchanged"

That sounds a little depressing to me… Sonic pressed the side of his head against the door to hear Shadow clearer.

"It's useless to resist, their effort will be wasted.

Head straight for your goal by any means; there is a door that'll never open

There is a window with a view you have never seen get there no matter how long it takes"

Shadow sighed and turned off the water; the taps giving a faint squeal.

"Oh, dark, the darkness that dozes in the dusk, throw it all away;

No-one can break you nobody can tear you; you'll live an endless life forever.

Oh, dark, the darkness that dozes in the dusk, throw it all away;

You see a light wherever you go you have to face it again and again…"

Sonic was too lost in his thought to hear the shower turn off. Those lyrics sound awfully familiar. I think I've heard him sing that somewhere before, but where? And when?

Shadow opened the bathroom door and found Sonic staring blankly to the left, right in the doorway. He quickly covered himself with his towel over his crotch and growled his face bright red. "Faker! What the HELL do you think you're doing?!" Sonic blinked and was brought of his daydreaming, gazing subconsciously over the other's body watching the water dripping off. "Uh, Tails wanted me to get you out. He wants to give us something." He turned to the hallway and raised a hand waving it gently. "And don't worry. I wasn't being a peeping tom or anything. Hurry up and get yourself decent.” Shadow growled as he watched Sonic walking away tittering to himself.

“I hope he didn’t hear me singing…”

* * *

 

After a minute Shadow walked into the living room; the eyes of the three anthros immediately focused on him. “What do you have for us?” Tails cleared his throat and smiled cutely, “I know for you three it’ll be a little uncomfortable for you to look as you do in public, so with some camouflage rings I found while searching for my teleporter to upgrade it, I modified them for you guys. You can choose to wear them as armbands, collars, bracelets or leg bands.” He handed them each a gray ring with a green button with smaller red lights next to it. “These will create a disguise of your original bodies, and will it not only give you the look it will also feel as though you have your pelts and muscles and everything else a normal body consists of. The only problem with it is that the effects will only last for 5 hours, needing a 1 and a half hour recharge before your next use. They also work as inhibitor rings, whether activated or not, containing your chaos outputs.”

Tails turned behind him and grabbed a small pouch from the table, “You will also need to wear these inhibitor rings to give your bodies temporary stability. You can wear these 24/7 if you so wish.”

Shadow frowned and crossed his arms, “Why would I need the other rings? What about my own?”

“I knew you would ask that; your rings are not nearly as strong as these are. Their chaos stability levels are more concentrated than your own. I would highly advise grabbing one of the additional rings.” Sighing Shadow reached forward and grabbed one. He clenched his fist feeling the ring shrink in his hand. When reopened, the inhibitor ring had shrunk to the size of a ring one would slip on their middle finger, to which he did. Silver and Sonic quickly reached into the satchel themselves; Silver had slipped his ring on behind his glove. Sonic stared in awe watching Shadow compressing the ring to a smaller size. Copying his actions, he soon shrunk the ring and slipped it on his index finger. Holding it to the light he watched the rebound off the edge making it shimmer slightly.

“If you guys could please put on the camouflage rings I can adjust them to read your DNA.” Tails presented the gray rings for the skele-hogs to take. Shadow fastened the ring around his neck and heard an obnoxious snicker from the increasingly annoying hedgehog behind him. Shadow growled and bared his fangs, “What are you laughing at now, Faker?!”

“I didn’t think you’d be the one to wear things in such a fashion. My my aren’t you kinky?” Sonic laughed at the darker while slipping the ring on his upper arm; satisfied with the rising growl coming from the other. “Shut it!!”

Silver slipped the ring on his opposite wrist and shook his head, pushing his wrist towards Tails’ direction to begin calibration. “Please, no hostility, you two.” He sighed, “At least spend the rest of the day not trying to kill each other will you?” Tails pressed a series of buttons until three quick high-pitched beeps sounded from the ring. The three watched as Silver’s body was covered in a white light for half a second. As the light faded, Silver had regained his fur, tail, ears and eyes all as they were before the accident. Tails gave Silver’s arm a quick rub, checked his eyes and blew gently into his ears making sure for a positive response. Satisfied he smiled and gave a quick fist pump. “Haha! Yes! It’s working perfectly you guys!”

Sonic smiled and gave his brother a thumbs up and toothy grin, “As I would expect from my little bro!” he thrusted his arm towards Tails, “Dibs me next!” Tails walked over and began the same calibrations to Sonic’s ring as he did to Silver’s. After his quick transformation, Sonic began rubbing his arms and ears; he gently cupped his cheeks and began nuzzling into his palms. “Ah, it’s good to have it back. Cotton isn’t quite as soft or comfortable as my fur.”

Shadow tilted his head allowing Tails more access to his ring and began glaring daggers at Sonic, “Would you care to touch yourself in your own privacy, please?” Sonic paused and blinked at the darker hedgehog. After a second, Sonic smirked and slowly slid his hand seductively up his thigh. In a smooth and risqué voice, Sonic lowered his voice and brought himself closer to Shadow. “Why would I do that? Aren’t you enjoying the show?”

Shadow’s voice hitched as his body began to transform and a deep scarlet blush spread over his muzzle. Ignoring the ever rising heat across his face Shadow bared his fangs at the younger and brought his face closer in aggression. “If for any absurd reason I was enjoying watching this repulsive behaviour, would I be telling you to stop?!” Sonic lowered his eyelids even lower and brought his face only mere millimetres from Shadow’s. He could feel Shadow’s ragged breathing against his face and brought a hand to Shadow’s chest gently playing with the white fur; teasing it and rubbing it gently. “Yes. Yes you would. Why?” He looked up at the fidgeting hedgehog and brushed a tongue over his bottom lip, “Because you’re embarrassed that you find this so enjoyable and are trying to cover it up with mock disgust.” The sapphire pressed his body against Shadow and smirked. Said hedgehog swiftly pushed the other off of him and left the room, heading straight for the kitchen. Sonic watched Shadow leave and burst into a fit of laughter once he had left the room. He clutched his stomach and rolled his head back as he was a giggling mess on the couch. Once he regained his breath, he wiped a tear from his eye and turned his attention to the albino hedgehog and twin-tailed kitsune who were giving unimpressed looks. His laughing slowed and eventually ceased.

“What?” Sonic frowned and crossed his arms, “He started it!!” He thrusted his hand towards the kitchen and began waving it about. Tails pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head, “I am not in the mood to tell you off right now,” he turned to Silver and his hand limped back to his side, “Do you still have your Chronos Stone, Silver?”

Silver nodded, “Of course. Why?”

“I need it so I can alter my dimension teleporter so it travels through time instead. Originally the teleporter used Chaos Emeralds.” Silver stood from the recliner and brushed a hand through his quills, “I left it with Blaze’s care. I’ll retrieve it now and be back as soon as I can, but I might be gone for an hour or two.”

“Why don’t I just get it for you?” Sonic piped up to the ivory, “I’ll be there in 5 minutes-“

“Blaze won’t hand over the Stone to anyone other than me, though I do appreciate your offer.”

Sonic shrugged and smiled, “Well I leave it to you, my friend” he gave Silver a quick two-fingered salute and got up from the couch and jumped over the back. Silver nodded his head and walked out the door. He flew away, letting the cool summer breeze dance through his quills.

Sonic walked into the kitchen and leant against the door frame watching Shadow work his way around the room; his eyes half lidded in a somewhat dreamy state and a smile present on his muzzle, “Hey, Shads…”

Shadow kept his back facing the cobalt and flattened his ears slightly when he heard Sonic. “What do you want now, hedgehog?” He walked over to an upper cupboard and grabbed out a mug making sure to avoid eye contact with Sonic who grabbed a glass out of the same cupboard. “I just wanted to say sorry… again…” Sonic grabbed the mug out of Shadow’s hand and smiled softly, “I’ll make you the drink instead. Coffee, I’m guessing?” Shadow leant against the bench and continued to refuse to look at the obnoxious hedgehog, his arms crossed solidly over his chest. “I’d rather not; too bitter for my tastes… I only ever have coffee if there’s no tea left and always with three sugars.”

**_Three sugars? Geez, this guy has one heck of a sweet tooth…_** “Well, we don’t have any tea here. Tails never drinks it and it all tastes the same to me, but I don’t find it that interesting. We’ve got powdered chocolate or Milo…”

“Milo?”

” Yeah, it’s like hot chocolate but not quite as sweet and is made from malted barley instead of chocolate. Knuckles gave me some after coming back from Down Unda. Said it’s really popular there…” Sonic grabbed the drink mix and placed a couple of teaspoons in each the glass and mug, “Oh, do you want it hot or cold?”

Shadow gave in and glance over at Sonic with a gentle sigh, “Hot. I’m not really into cold drinks unless drinking water or juice.”

Sonic shrugged and smiled, “Meh, fair enough.” He clicked on the kettle, the whistling slowly growing louder. He grabbed the milk from the fridge and poured it into his glass, stirring it gently and allowed the drink to mix a little with most of the powder sitting on top. Shadow furrowed his brows together and frowned, “Sonic, you haven’t mixed it properly. If you’re offering to make drinks, I would have thought you would at least know how to make them.”

Sonic beamed and seemed somewhat giddy and restless where he stood. “But that’s the great thing about it! It doesn’t mix in properly if it’s cold. Don’t know why but it’s a lot of fun eating the powder.” He grabbed the spoon out of the glass and scooped a large heap of the powder and put it in his mouth. After a second he removed the spoon and took another heap presenting it to Shadow. “Y’want some?”

Shadow stared at it blankly then took the spoon and slowly ate the powder. Shadow opened his eyes widen and quickly removed the spoon. A snicker came from Sonic and he winked at the wide-eyed hedgehog. “It’s awesome, yeah?”

“Why the hell didn’t you grab me a different spoon?!”

Sonic blushed and scratched his nose in embarrassment, “Woops… sorry, Shadow…” The kettle beeped and he poured the water into the mug, thoroughly mixing the drink before adding the milk. He handed the mug to Shadow with a beaming smile, “But it still tasted good, right?” Shadow huffed and took the drink, “I guess,” he took a sip and smiled, “it does taste nice, I suppose.”

Sonic grinned and wrapped his arm over Shadow’s shoulders. “That’s good enough for me!” He pulled Shadow out of the kitchen and looked up slightly in thought an brought a finger to his chin. “Oh, by the way, Silver won’t be back for a couple of hours. Has to go and grab his time stone from Blaze. Tails needs it for his machine so it appears we’ve got some time to kill.” He lowered his eye lids and brought his face close to Shadow’s; a devilish smirk spreading over his muzzle as he leant closer to Shadow’s ear and whispered coarsely, “And I know just what we can do…”

* * *

 

“G-go faster, damn it!”

“Take my SONIC SPEED~!”

Loud screams could be heard from behind Sonic’s bedroom door.

“Ah, hurry up!”

“So… close~! Aha~!”

“Ahhhhh!!!”

Shadow threw the controller at the television. For the fifth time in a row Sonic had only just beaten him by no more than 40 milliseconds. Sonic lunged for the controller and caught it just as it was about to make contact with the screen. He grinned and poked out his tongue, “Ultimate Crybaby. Face it; I’m just too fast for you” Shadow growled and narrowed his eyes at the sapphire, “This game would make more sense if you and I didn’t have to ride those stupid vehicles” he added throwing his hand at the television. Sonic shrugged and grinned giving the other a quick wink, “Yeah, but then that wouldn’t be fair play would it?” he poked Shadow in the side sending a jolt through the ebony’s body and snickered slightly, “I’d still beat you anyway.” He glanced at the clock on the wall and sighed. “How long have we been playing for anyway?”

Shadow stretched his arms over his head and scrunched his face as he heard a gentle pop come from his back, opening one of his eyes and yawning slightly, “Roughly 45 minutes…” he replied with slight retardation in his voice. He covered his mouth with a gloved hand and tried his best to stifle another set of oncoming yawns; his eyes becoming slightly teary. Sonic leaned back and landed on the floor with a slight thud and lied there with his arms outstretched just staring at the ceiling. “Ugh… Why does Silver have to take so long?”

Shadow grunted then immediately flinched at the sudden sound watching Sonic face palm and growl slightly. “I’m an IDIOT!”

“What’s new…?” Shadow replied with a slight roll of his crimson pupils and a toothy smirk. He lied on his back next to Sonic and rested his hands under his head counting all the cracks in the ceiling. Sonic glared at the hedgehog next to him and pouted while pinching the bridge of his nose. “I should have taken him there myself, then we’d probably be looking for those Chaos Emeralds by now…” Shadow stretched again, arching his back off the ground, “Ditto, too bad you didn’t think of that earlier.” Sonic watched Shadow stretch and blushed slightly. The ebony hedgehog slowly sat up grunting and reached for his controller, smirking and lowering his eyelids at the azure teen. “Anyway, I call rematch.”

Sonic lifted himself swiftly and grabbed his controller, chuckling with a devilish grin.

“Oh, you’re on, Faker!”

“Faker.”

* * *

 

Silver later returned from retrieving from Blaze and upon entering the house his attention was given directly to the loud screaming upstairs.

“GODDAMN IT, SONIC!”

The future ‘hog sweat dropped and decided to leave the hedgehogs to their activities rather than intervene. He made his way down to Tails’ lab and gently rapped on the door, “Tails, I’ve got the stone for you!”

Footsteps quickly made their way to the door and the large door opened to reveal the genius youth covered in oil with a wielding mask on. Tails quickly flipped the mask up with a beaming smile plastered on his face and took the gleaming orange stone from Silver’s grasp. “Great! This is all we need for the machine to work…” Tails paused and listened to the commotion from the two rivals upstairs and smiled to himself, “I don’t understand those two sometimes.” Tails glanced at the stone for a brief second then returned his focus to the teen in front of him. “Do you think you could call them down for me? I want them to be here when I start it up.” He jerked a thumb behind him indicating towards the dimensional teleporter.

“Uh… yeah, sure.”

“Thanks!” And with that, Tails closed the door in Silver’s face and trotted back down to the machine. Silver just stood there; an unimpressed frown forming. He began to mumble to himself as he trudged up the stairs. “Ugh…” **_I hope what they’re doing is PG…_** Once he reached the top of the stairwell and made his way to Sonic’s room, he pressed his ear against the door and listened to the two bickering between each other.

“What the hell are you doing, Faker?!”

“Beating your arse, that’s what!”

“Argh! No fair! H-hey! G-get offa me!”

Silver, concerned about the actions on the other side of the piece of wood, swung open the door to find Sonic sitting on Shadow’s lap trying to distract him from the game.

“Hey, Silver,” Sonic greeted without removing his view from the screen, “You’re just in time to watch me beat this faker _again_!”

Shadow smirked and an evil shine glinted in his eyes. He rested his head in the crook of Sonic’s neck and snaked an arm around his waist.

“W-woah, Shadow! Personal space there, buddy!” Sonic felt heat rising in his cheeks as he began squirming about, eventually falling off of Shadow when the supporting arm was removed. Sonic fell with a quite thud and soon felt weight being pushed against his chest to find Shadow ad taken advantage of the situation and lied across Sonic’s torso. “H-hey! I can’t see! That’s cheating, Shads!” Sonic watched in horror as the car swerved and crashed into the wall just as he was about to cross the finishing line.

“That’s what you get for being so cocky.” Shadow’s character crossed the finishing line in first place. “Haha~!” He lifted himself off of Sonic so he could watch the other’s reaction of seeing all the other racers crossing the line before him.

“LAST?!” Sonic stared mortified at the screen and felt his blood slightly boil, “You asshole!” In a blur of limbs and curse words Sonic tackled the onyx ‘hog to the ground and began wrestling him. Silver watched and drooped his ears confused as to what the heck just happened. After a minute of hurtful words flying across the room Silver felt the need to pipe up.

“OI, LOVEBIRDS!!”

Sonic and Shadow instantly ceased their actions; a bundle of tangled limbs, glaring at Silver. Silver breathed a sigh of relief and crossed his arms, “Now I have your attention, Tails wants us in his lab for the big unveiling of the teleporter. Hurry up.” Silver nodded and left leaving the two to sort themselves out. Sonic stared at the hedgehog beneath him and poked out his tongue, “Cheat.” Shadow smirked and pushed Sonic off of him and headed for the door, stopping and leaning on the door frame. “Sook.” He winked and made his way down the stairs.

Sonic blushed and stared wide eyed at where Shadow once stood. Shaking his head and grinning from ear to ear he ran out the room and caught up with Shadow.

* * *

 

“Behold!”

Tails pressed a sequence of buttons and watched as the machine roared to life.

“I’ve pinned down the location of the first Chaos Emerald. I think you’re going to enjoy this one, Sonic.”

“Hm? Why?” Sonic cocked his head to the side and furrowed his brows together, pouting ever so slightly. Tails giggled and brought up a picture of their destination on his Miles Electric. “It’s from when we saved the Wisps from Eggman at that interstellar amusement park.”

Sonic immediately smiled and began fidgeting where he stood. “Really?! That place was awesome! Is the portal ready to go?” He started bouncing on his heels and fidgeting his hands around, eager to return to one of his previous adventures. “You bet! But one thing before you go. Whatever you do, try not to run into your past selves. You could tear the fabric of time.”

“But what about a few years ago when we ran into Sonic’s younger self?”

Tails turned to Shadow and placed a hand on his hip. “since those portals were created by a natural creature the affects aren’t quite the same, but because ours is unnatural it could posses some dire consequences.” He turned and grabbed his wrist communicator and pointed his finger at it. “Also, if you need to talk to me, I’ve built communicators inside the camouflage rings. No matter what time period you’re in, you’ll be connected with present me and each other.”

“Got it! Be fast, be hidden! See you on the flip side, buddy!” Sonic gave his bro a fist bump before jumping into the portal. Shadow huffed and skated after the speedster, making sure that he didn’t do anything stupid and get himself hurt before they got there. Or, at least he tried to convince himself that’s why. Silver shrugged and began levitating, “I guess I need to make sure they don’t end up killing each other.” He flew into the portal leaving Tails in the silence of his lab, save for the humming of the machine. Tails nodded and picked up his Electric, “Right, time to find the location of the other Emeralds…”

* * *

 

Sonic landed on his feet and stretched his legs and arms whilst inspecting his environment. “This place looks just as awesome now as it did the first time.” He quick stepped to the side to allow a cyan wisp to fly past. Shadow landed next to him and crossed his arms. “To think the Doctor built something as beautiful as this.”

“Must have gotten his skills from his grandfather…”Sonic mumbled to himself. Shadow’s ear twitched and he turned his head to face Sonic.

“Pardon?”

Sonic went wide eyed and shook his head. “I said he apparently made this place to ‘make up for his previous misdeeds’” Sonic bent his index and middle fingers to represent quotation marks. “Pfft! All he wanted to do was siphon the energy from these little aliens called Wisps. Pretty cool guys if you ask me.” The two hedgehogs’ small talk was cut off as Silver floated down in front of them. “Right, down to business. Shadow, can you sense the presence of the Chaos Emerald anywhere?”

Shadow closed his eyes and hummed slightly. “I don’t have a clear reading but it’s roughly West of us,” he pointed his finger to the left of the trio. Sonic raised his hand next to his face and blinked, “Question; any idea if it’s in inside the park?”

Shadow opened his eyes and ran a hand through his quills. “I’ll get a clearer reading the closer we get to it. We’ll split up. Silver, you go left. Sonic; right. I’ll take straight ahead. Remember our camouflages will only last another couple of hours as well. When you get close you should feel a sudden shift in gravity, whether it’s stronger or weaker.”

“How do you know?”

Shadow sighed and gazed over Sonic quickly, “Trust me, you’ll know if you see it. Now let’s go.”

The three all nodded at each other and split in their directions.

* * *

 

Silver made his way to Sweet Mountains, Sonic; Starlight Carnival and Shadow stayed within the park.

“So I guess all these little flying annoyances buzzing around are what Sonic called “Wisps”. I wonder why the Doctor would be so interested in these creatures-”Shadow paused as he heard a very familiar voice.

“Oh, man! That…Was…CRAZY!”

Shadow hid behind one of the walls and peeked his head around the corner watching the owner of the voice. “Sonic?”

“Oh, I was reconfiguring my hand-held into a translator so I can understand this guy. Did you go somewhere?”

Shadow peered around and found Tails very close by. Shadow hid himself completely behind the wall and pressed his back against the wall.

“Didn’t you see?” Sonic continued, “I absorbed those aliens and got powered up with, like some powerful energy! And after a few seconds they’d pop outta me!”

“I find that hard to believe.”

**_Weirder things are going to happen to you in the future, fox boy._** Shadow thought to himself. He began hearing strangle warbling noises and checked around he corner to see what on earth could possibly be making those noises. He saw a small white alien happily flying around Sonic.

“Okay, seriously, we need to find Eggman and figure out how catching these aliens fits into whatever heinous plan he’s hatching.” Sonic punched his fist into his hand and smirked. “And wreck that plan, right?”

Sonic shrugged and cocked his head slightly, “Yep. That’s pretty much how we spend our time.”

Shadow smirked and hid himself again. “He never stops looking for trouble…” he muttered to himself before running off in Sonic’s general direction, staying out of view. As he followed Sonic one of the aliens, a little white one much like the one that was with Sonic and Tails, followed him and started making noises at him. Shadow stopped and folded his arms, raising an eye ridge. “What, prey tell, do you want?” With a squeal the alien flew into Shadow’s torso, his body soon glowing and shot off speeding past Sonic.

Sonic noticed the light flying past and decided to follow it. “What was that? Probably one of Egg-butt’s robots. Told Tails he had some plot going on. Heh, he’s gonna have to pay up!”

Shadow suddenly stopped and the alien immerged out of Shadow’s body giggling to itself. Shadow gritted his teeth and tried to make a grab for the alien. “If you or any of your friends do that to me again without my consent, I swear to Chaos I’ll-”

“SONIC?!

Again, another familiar voice caught Shadow’s attention allowing the alien to make its escape making raspberry sounds at the distracted hedgehog.

“Who you calling ‘nothing’?” Sonic appeared and turned hitting his backside in Eggman’s direction, pulling down an eyelid and poking out his tongue.

“Huh?” The small square robot next to the doctor questioned. “He means since the boss said “nothing will stop me” and Sonic here is going to stop him, it’s like the boss was calling Sonic “nothing”.” The small spherical robot replied. Sonic smiled and placed his hands on his waist. “Great! I thought nobody would get that!”

Eggman smashed his hand on the control panel of his hovercraft and frowned. “Fine! You’re so smart. Robot, you take care of this mess. Release the Big Boy! At least I know he won’t screw it up! Hasta la bye-bye, suckers!” He saluted and flew off giving the sapphire hedgehog a quick raspberry before zooming out of view.

Sonic rubbed his nose and smirked, “Guess it’s time for me to start stopping!”

The Robot came out and began attacking at Sonic shooting its arms at him, missing and getting caught in the ground. Sonic smirked and ran up his arm aiming straight for the robot’s eye. The robot quickly closed its eye, shielding it from the attack. Sonic bounced off onto one of the rotating platforms. He looked up and saw a capsule full of White Wisps. He laughed and jumped up from one platform to the next. He looked behind and saw one of the arms swinging down to attack him; he barely dodged it and landed on the platform below. Making another homing attack at the robot’s eye, using the boost abilities from the Wisps he successfully managed to hit his target. The robot shook furiously almost making Sonic loose his footing

“Aww, is the wittle robot getting his butt handed to him? You’re gonna have to do better than that to get me falling! Haha!”

The robot began spinning faster and shot another arm at him. Sonic began taunting it, pulling faces and making stupid noises.

“Neh neh neh-neh neh!” Sonic blew another raspberry at the robot. He made another shot at the eye again successfully hitting it. As he landed he noticed a familiar black and red body on the ground watching him fighting.

“Shadow?!”

The robot took advantage of Sonic’s absence from the battle and swung an arm at him hitting him square in the back.

“Sonic!” Shadow watched as Sonic was hit by the robot and swiftly ran over to catch him before he hit the ground. Both hit the ground hard, but much softer for Sonic than if Shadow had not caught him. “OOF--!”

Raised a hand to his head and shook it. **_Why is the ground so soft and warm?_** He jumped a little where he sat and heard a soft groan underneath him. He went wide-eyed and jumped off as he saw he was sitting on Shadow. “S-Shadow?! What are you doing here?!”

Sitting up, Shadow glared at the flustered Sonic. “That doesn’t matter right now, Faker. You have unfinished business you need to get on with.” Shadow pointed to the robot behind him. “Right. Care to join?” Sonic asked handing out a hand for Shadow to take. Shadow ignored his hand and got folding his arms. “I’m sure you can handle an annoyance as tedious as this on your own.” Sonic pulled back his hand and shrugged. “Okay then. Your loss, though.” He laughed and jumped back onto the platforms, not stopping until he reached the centre row. “Alright, you bucket o’ bolts! Let’s get this over with!”

He launched another attack at the eye, hitting it then landing on one of the platforms. The robot began shaking harder than before, smoke pouring from behind the eye. Sonic, knowing this was a good sign for him, bad sign for the robot, he swiftly jumped off the robot before it collapsed and watched as one of the arms went flying over yonder. He raised his hands over his eyes as he watched, smirking, wide eyed and leaning ever so slightly forward.

“Hehe, well that was one heck of a warm up. Hey, y’don’t think Egghead would make a good P.T. do ya? Not that he’d be able to do any of the exercises but he could make me some sweet robots to get me moving!” he strolled over to Shadow, his hands behind his neck, “Nah, he’d probably collapse of cardiac arrest if I mention the word “exercise” around him! Hehehe!”

Shadow just stared at the snickering hedgehog, his face blank and emotionless.

Sonic sweat dropped, “Not laughing, huh? Didn’t think so; you never do. Hey, you wouldn’t care to help me with kicking Eggman’s iron butt would you?” he smiled and punched his fist into his palm. “I’m afraid I can’t. I have my own worries here that I need to put to rest”

“Oh… well, I guess I’ll see you around then.” The azure winked and began running forward but was swiftly stopped as Shadow stepped in front pushing Sonic gently on the chest. “Wha-?” Sonic blushed slightly.

“You can’t tell anyone I was here.” Shadow ordered sternly. “What? Why? You’re not up to no good again are you?” Sonic smirked trying to ignore the rising heat in his cheeks. “Just don’t. It’s vitally important that you don’t.”

“Alright, alright. I won’t, jeez!” Sonic put up his hands in surrender and grinned, gently closing his eyes. “Promise me, Sonic?”

“Whatever you want, Shads.” He raised a hand next to his head and the other to his heart. “I promise not to tell another soul of my encounter with you. Happy?” Shadow huffed and looked away, removing his hand from the other’s chest but slightly brushing against it. “That will suffice, I suppose. Now hurry up and get back to Tails. It’s already been 5 minutes and you’re not back yet. I’m sure he’s getting worried.”

“Sure. See you later, Stripes!” Sonic left with a wink and a quick two-finger salute. Shadow watched Sonic leave then turned to continue his search for the Emerald.

* * *

 

“Ugh, just looking at it is making me feel sick…” Silver walked through the Sweet Mountains, gently clutching his stomach, “blech… why would anyone ever want to come here? The smell is way too sickening… just… sugar everywhere…” he covered his nose with his hand and yelped as a yellow alien zoomed past making squealing sounds as Silver felt something smash into his back. His body glowed yellow and was suddenly thrown into the ground spinning nearly as fast as Sonic could run. After some random turning and spinning he was thrust into the air again, the wind escaping his lungs as the alien flew out of his torso. He landed to the ground with a thud, clutching his sides, breathing heavily. “I…am *gasp* not… meant to *gasp* go that… fast!”

After slowly regaining his breath, Silver sat up and studied the environment around him. “No wonder Fat Boy likes this place so much; sugar as far as the eye can see.” He huffed and flicked off a piece of sponge cake dirt from his shoulder.

“Hah!”

Silver heard a voice behind him with the crashing of metal followed closely behind, he turned and found a hedgehog wearing a dark grey catsuit with machine-looking patters adorning it, with a matching helmet. His spikes were forced all the way down but the tips shot up. “Hey!” Silver stood up, noticing a broken capsule lying on the ground, and paced towards the figure. The figure turned and shot up into the air and began floating away from Silver.

“Hey, come back!”

He began following the figure through the air. The hedgehog stopped and turned throwing dark spears towards the ivory.  Silver swiftly dodged and grabbed the spears throwing them back. The figure dipped under and threw an upper cut punch to Silver’s jaw causing him to fall slightly. Silver spat out blood and wiped his jaw, smirking darkly. He swooped down to the ground, hovering slightly and grabbing the broken capsule, throwing it at the figure. The figure was hit full force and was thrown back with a groan.

“Who are you?”

Silver walked to the lying figure and held him with his telekinesis, restricting all of his movements.

“Why the hell should I tell you?” the voice was deep and menacing; his voice had a robotic tone to it. Frowning, Silver raised his hand and tightly clenched his fist, squeezing and constricting the grey. “Ahhhh! Enough! Stopheles!”

“Pardon?”

“My name is Stopheles, you idiot!”

Silver walked forward and peered up at the so called ‘Stopheles’. “What business do you have here?”

“I could ask you the same thing. I answered your question now answer mine; who are you?”

“My name is Silver,” he threw his hand to his side, throwing Stopheles into the ground creating a small crater in the soft sponge cake dirt. A yellow wisp flew into Silver, once again turning into a drill of sorts and tunnelling himself directly into Stopheles. Holding his hands in front and keeping the drill from impaling his body, his hands slowly slipping, the drill coming closer to Stopheles’ body by the second. Suddenly, the alien popped out of Silver, his body returning to normal falling gently onto Stopheles. A growl could be heard from the grey as he kicked the body off of him.

“You’re weak, Ivory.” He walked over to Silver who was lying on the ground taking damage from the kick. He crouched bringing his metallic face next to Silver’s. “You know, White Boy, you look quite cute when you’re bruised and bleeding,” he held Silver’s chin and forced him to look up, “it’s a difficult choice to decide whether I want to kill you or not…”

Silver growled and threw Stopheles away from him, ignoring the gashing blood coming from his forehead. **_I know Tails said out bodies would be weaker but this is ridiculous!_**

“My, my. Aren’t we a feisty one?” Stopheles chuckled as he lifted himself off the ground, “While our battle has been what would care to call, ‘entertaining’, I’m afraid I have more important matters to attend to. Farewell for now, Silver.” He turned his back on the telekinetic hedgehog and floated up, listening to Silver’s protests below.

“You coward! Come back here and fight me!” Silver floated and reached the same height as Stopheles, snarling at him. Stopheles turned and raised a hand to his chest. “What? Are you jealous that I’m leaving you so soon? Don’t worry, Silver, I’ll come back for you.” he snapped his fingers and a dark purple portal opened behind him. “Promise” He flew back into the portal.

Silver was too slow to catch the fleeing hedgehog before the portal closed behind him. In a rage he swiftly flew down to a nearby Eggbot and sent it flying into the nearby wall, which sent out reinforcements. Silver watched as they shot out of the elevators and he grinned darkly, “This is gonna be fun…” he added before cracking his knuckles and in one sweep of his arm the ‘bots went flying in all directions. **_It feels like a fire is swelling inside of me; one that I can’t control,_** he smirked wide eyed and his pupils the size of pinheads, **_And all I want to do is DESTROY!!!_** he laughed sinisterly as he ripped one of the robots apart.

* * *

 

“Man, it feels like it was only yesterday when I came in here and kicked Eggman’s butt. But then again, I kick his butt everyday!” Sonic snickered to himself as he walked through the Starlight Carnival, stretching his arms over his head as he marvelled over his surroundings; the bright lights and constant parade-like floats played through the sky like fireflies. Sonic remembered his task at hand and rolled his eyes sighing, “’ _When you get close you should feel a sudden shift in gravity, whether it’s stronger or weaker’”_ he mocked Shadow with a whiney high pitched and squeaky voice, “This part of the amusement has weird gravity shifts everywhere. Gonna be **real** easy trying to find the Chaos Emerald here.”

He stopped and tapped his finger on his chin, “Why would there be a shift in gravity anyway? There never was when we usually grabbed them. What isn’t Shadow telling me?”

**_A lot, that’s what._** Sonic smacked his head with the heel of his palm and growled to himself, “What the heck?!” sighing, he slumped and rolled his shoulders forward. His ears perked as he heard one of the roller coasters zooming past and screaming closely followed. “That doesn’t sound like any of the Wisps. I’ve gotta check it out!” Sonic sprinted after the roller coaster at close proximity, leaping from building to building to keep up to speed with it. “Whoa! That’s pretty fast!” he smiled to himself, somewhat impressed something was able to challenge his speed.

Suddenly, he lost his footing and tripped but never hit the ground as he started floating. “W-what the-?! What’s goin’ on?!” he heard laughing beneath him and tried to face the taunter but the lack of gravity didn’t give him much control. “This isn’t funny!” he shouted as he watched the speeding coaster go by again with a dark blue hedgehog inside blowing raspberries at him. When the coaster went out of view Sonic suddenly fell to the platform underneath him. He sat up holding his head with a puzzled look on his face.

“Who in the world was that?”

Sonic pressed a button on the grey ring and heard a crackle then a beep indicating he had connection with the others. “Shadow, Silver? You guys reading me clear?”

“Loud and clear, hedgehog. What seems to be the matter?”

“Hey, what’s up?!”

Silver and Shadow’s voice crackled through the communicator. “Shadow, ya know how you said there would be gravity fluctuations around the chaos emerald?”

“Have you found it?”

Sonic scratched his head slightly embarrassed and chuckled slightly. “Not yet, but there’s this blue hedgehog-guy who might be using the Chaos Emerald. He seems to be manipulating the gravity around him. Any idea on what’s going on?” There was silence on the other end leaving Sonic feeling a little awkward in his position. “Uh, Shads? You right-?”

“Where are you?” Shadow’s voice suddenly called back through the ring. “I’m at the Starlight Carnival towards the back end of it.” He suddenly heard Silver tittering, “Back end… hehe…”

Sonic rolled his eyes and smiled at Silver’s still childish humour. “Oh ha ha. Real funny, Silver.”

“We’ll be there soon. Don’t move.” Shadow added before more silence. “Why do you always give me the difficult tasks?” Sonic heard a beep coming from his ring and a slight buzzing. “Shads? Shadow? You there?” Sonic received no response and puffed his cheeks in annoyance. “He hung up on me!”

“I’m sure you’ll manage lover-boy. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Sonic heard Silver snickering and frowned. “Don’t call me that. Alright, I’ll see you soon.” A second beep came from the ring indicating that Silver had also disconnected. “Don’t move, he says. Well what am I supposed to do while he gets here?” he lied down and rested his arms under his head. “Well, since no-one’s here…” he smiled and whistled a little tune.

“ _Take off at the speed of sound~ bright lights, colours all around…”_

* * *

 

Shadow arrived a few minutes later; he spotted the blue hedgehog and walked over to him, stopping just before he reached him. He could hear Sonic faintly singing to himself.

“ _Oh, I can feel it now, the colours all around!_

_Just take my hand we’re gonna reach for the stars…_

_Just take a chance, we’ll do it right again._

_Just take my hand, we’ll take a chance tonight…_

_reach for the stars!_

_Tonight… tonight…_ ”

Sonic sat up and stretched hearing a faint pop from his spine, “Man, it’s been a while since I’ve sung that.” He heard shuffling behind him and watched as Silver and Shadow approached him. “Hey, glad you could make it! You guys didn’t hear anything did you?”

Silver smiled and cocked a brow. “Nope. Been quiet ‘til you opened your trap, though the Wisps seem to be kinda chatty like.”

“Where’s the Chaos Emerald?” Shadow asked bluntly.

“Not up for conversation, huh? I don’t know just yet but there was this Blue guy riding around on the roller coaster here.” Sonic pointed to the coaster behind him, “I think he’s manipulating the gravitational pull by using the Chaos Emerald. You said that the Emerald would be fluctuating gravity or something, right?”

Shadow frowned and closed his eyes, “I did,” he opened his eyes again and turned to watch the coaster. “Any idea when the roller coaster will return to this point?”

Sonic tapped a finger on his chin and shrugged, “Not quite sure but I can only assume soon.” He turned to Silver and noticed the dark purple bruise under his jaw. “Holy-! What happened to you?! Are you okay?” Sonic cupped Silver’s face and began tilting it gently to find any other possible marks. Silver smiled sheepishly and chuckled, “You mean that little thing?” he smiled and swatted Sonic’s hands away, “It’s fine, I just got in a little tousle with some guy over at the Sweet Mountains. I think he was releasing the wisps.”

Sonic frowned and firmly placed his hands on his waist. “Then why were you fighting him?! He’s on our side if he’s freeing the little guys.” Silver sighed and rolled his eyes, “Well, I went to go and talk to him- see what he was doing and who he was- then he just started throwing these dark spear-thingies at me, trying to start a fight. I was just trying to protect myself!”

Sonic leaned closer and growled, “You could of just dodged them and flew off or somethin’!” Silver crossed his arms and leaned his head closer so that it was pushing against Sonic’s, “Well, it’s great to see that my friend doesn’t give two that I was trying to protect myself from a guy who I was hoping could help us! But NO~! But what would you know about trying to find help; all you do is run away from everything!”

Shadow walked between the two and began pushing each other away, his hands firmly on their chests. “Would you two idiots just shut up already?! We need to keep our focus on the Chaos Emerald!”

A squeal could be heard behind the trio and they all turned around to find the blue hedgehog laying in a seductive manner over one of the coaster buggies. “Hey there, cuties…” the stranger giggled. Shadow sighed and rolled his eyes, “Yeah, hi…”

Sonic huffed and pushed Shadow’s hand off him sending warning glares. “Don’t be so rude, geez.” Sonic turned his attention to the guest and smiled. “Who are you?”

The stranger turned to Shadow and put a hand over his mouth in mock hurt and shock. “What? You haven’t told them about us, Shadow?” Shadow blushed and turned away with a huff. Sonic couldn’t help but stare at the two; he didn’t know why nut for some reason he felt… hurt. “What?! You know this guy?!”

Silver glanced over at Sonic and smirked, “How close are you two?” he asked the stranger. “We’re a lot closer than you two realise. You two and Rouge aren’t my only “friends” you know.”

Sonic scratched the back of his head and blushed, pouting. Shadow caught this and crossed his arms. “Nothing to get worked up over, hedgehog.”

“Huh?”

“Sonic, Silver…” Shadow began, “Meet DB, the Spirit of the Dark Blue Chaos Emerald…” he jerked his thumb to the now floating hedgehog beside him. Sonic and Silver just stared in disbelief.

DB grinned and blew a kiss at them.

“Howdy, fellas!”


End file.
